


Attack of the B-Team

by acroamatica, CyanideBreathmint



Series: Just Don't Put Down Your Guns, Yet [4]
Category: Inception (2010), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ace!Phasma, Angst, Dr. McDreamy!Hux, Drug Use, Gen, Hux suffers so prettily, M/M, Modern AU, Suitporn, competent and confident!Mitaka, dirty martini spy fiction, extractionverse, fragrance porn, gunporn, medical drama, tradecraft, transgirl!Netal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-05-29 17:50:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6386212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acroamatica/pseuds/acroamatica, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideBreathmint/pseuds/CyanideBreathmint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months have passed since Bren Hux and Kylo Ren have given in to their feelings and become lovers. Life seems charmed in that time - their work life goes well, they're happy together, and Nicole Phasma has not murdered them for what they did in her subconscious in Luxembourg. A mission in Belgrade puts Ren's life in peril, however, and Hux starts to suspect that there is something very shady going on in Langley's dreamshare department.</p><div class="center">
  <p>---</p>
</div>Content warning for gore and the consequences of violence.<br/>Content warning for serious panic attacks.<br/>Content warning for suicidal ideation.<br/>Content warning for contemplated alcohol abuse.<br/>Content warning for implied sexual assault.
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We did a lot of reading and research to make sure I got the medical terminology right, but we also softballed some of it so it would not be too confusing to folks who don't know what the Seldinger technique is.

“Son of a -” Kylo Ren muttered as he squeezed off a neat double-tap at a projection headed his way, watched him fold, and then adjusted his aim to shoot the man behind him. He could hear the sound of a power drill whining as Bren Hux worked to crack the safe behind him, and he could only hope that the maze he had laid out would buy them enough time for them to memorize their findings when Hux finally opened the safe. 

The risk of alarming and angering a mark’s subconscious projections was a constant in dreamshare, but Ren had never encountered someone whose projections were this organized and disciplined before. They did not surge like a crowd or a mob, but instead swarmed orderly like a column of ants. And worse still, the bastards were armed. The only mercy here was that they were showing up singly or in pairs instead of in a roiling mass - perhaps Phasma would have simply dreamed up a grenade launcher and blown up anyone downwind of the team, but Ren was presently qualified only for small arms, didn’t really know what he would do with a grenade launcher if he had one, and didn’t want to make any more alterations to the dream than he absolutely had to, seeing as the mark’s projections were already out for his blood at this present moment. 

He could feel panic somewhere in the back of his head, screaming _hello, Kylo, projections aren’t supposed to be armed and organized_ , but he was focusing too hard on the hallway and his training to let it take over. _Later,_ he told himself, _I can spend all the time in the world freaking out about how this is not supposed to happen, after the job is over._ That tamped the fear down enough that he could still function, at least, and it nagged at him, how reassuring the checkered grip of his sidearm felt in his hand. 

“I’m almost done,” Ren heard Hux murmur from behind him, in the right-hand corner of this dingy little basement room, pipes and cinderblock wall and a bare concrete floor. A damp smell hung in the air, the smell of humidity and insufficient ventilation in this underground sublevel, almost crowding out the smoky notes of spent gunpowder. 

“I hope Phasma’s fine,” Ren said as he stood to the left of the doorway, shoulders hunched in isosceles stance with his SIG P226 drawn as he glanced down the hallway, ready to slice the pie and acquire a new target the moment he saw movement in his field of vision. He was starting to feel kind of strange, as though repressing his own fear was creating an almost physical pressure in his head.

“We’d have known if something had gone wrong on her end,” said Hux. There was a soft click and a rustle of paper as he drew something out of the now-open safe, and Ren knew without looking that he was speed-reading the data they had just heisted, was committing every fact to memory. “Doorway clear?” Hux asked after half a minute of rapid reading. 

“Clear,” Ren said, and then Hux crossed the room to the right side of the door, drew his own Browning Hi-Power as he glanced down the hallway briefly. Ren holstered his sidearm and took the manila folder from Hux’s left hand, leaned hard against the wall and started to flip through the papers as Hux assumed a firing stance. _Shell companies,_ Ren thought, leafing rapidly through the thin pages, _money laundering_ \- aha, there it was, _weapons shipments._

Ren had started to call up his memory palace when Hux fired his Hi-Power in perfect Mozambique drill, and then twice more in a double-tap as he shot another pair of projections. Ren jumped at the pops of the reports in this enclosed space, winced - he still wasn’t used to just how loud guns were when he wasn’t expecting them - then let himself sink to the cold, hard concrete floor as he attempted again to memorize and encode the data he had read into his memory. His ears hurt, and the pressure in his head felt worse, but there it was in his mental library’s restricted lending section, filed under D for Denisov. He closed his eyes and visualized his fingers leaving the spine of the folder he had slipped into the shelf and the sound of his footsteps as he left the room, and then he opened his eyes and reached into his left jacket pocket for the detonator he had been carrying. 

“I’m done,” he told Hux, who then scooted over to his side of the doorway and sat down next to him. Their shoulders touched, and then Hux put his Hi-Power down on the floor as he took Ren’s right hand, and they leaned in to each other, foreheads touching as Ren pushed down on the detonator button. There was a heavy crump of sound and vibration around them as the explosives Ren had planted in this maze went off, and the walls shook, and they held on to each other as the walls imploded and fell in upon them - 

\---

Hux woke first, shuddered briefly as he remembered the crushing weight of concrete and steel, and then banished those thoughts quickly as he opened his eyes to glimpse dark red, wet and soaking into the hotel room carpet across from him. Everything smelled of blood. The hotel room door was open, and the hallway outside was an abattoir, a scene of carnage with bodies lying limp and broken everywhere. The walls were damaged from gunshots and shrapnel and there was gore everywhere, a trail leading into the hotel room - 

_“Phasma,”_ he barked as fear stabbed insistently at his gut, cold and spiky, and then he pulled himself quickly free of the IV cannula and the tether attaching him to the PASIV, scrambled swiftly across the carpet to her side. Phasma was slumped heavily against the side of the bed, the left side of her gray pinstripe jacket soaked through with blood. She was ashen, her lips touched with blue as he applied pressure reflexively to the bullet hole in her chest. Some of that blood had coagulated in the layers of her clothing, and the lining of her jacket was slimy with half-clotted blood against the back of Hux’s hand. 

“I was trying -” she gasped as Hux tipped her head back to clear her airway, “to stay awake -” She held on still to her sidearm, the stainless finish of her 1911 smeared with blood, and Hux looked down to see the pin of a grenade looped still around her right index finger. He felt her blood bubble against his palm as air hissed out of her punctured lung, and winced internally at the sensation. He wasn’t sure when exactly she had been shot, only that it had occurred while they were under, which meant that she might have been bleeding here for an agonizing ten to twelve minutes while he and Ren had dreamed. 

“We’ve got it. We’ve got the data,” Hux told her soothingly as she gulped for air. The agony must have been unimaginable, and to stay conscious against that pain, the shock and blood loss and a slow drowning as her blood had filled her chest cavity - that would have taken an incredible effort of will. 

“Good,” she mouthed soundlessly as more blood trickled over her lips. Hux took his right hand away from the gunshot wound on her chest, pulled his dripping hand away to take her sidearm away from her, and she closed her eyes as he held the gun to her temple, relaxing into his arms like a fist unclenching. 

“This’ll all be over soon,” he told her before he squeezed down on the trigger, and she sagged limply against him as he put her out of her misery. “Ren? Kylo?” He shouted across the room, as he laid Phasma down on the floor, dropped her sidearm beside her. “Are you awake?” They would have to get out of here as quickly as possible. 

“Uhh.” Ren moaned briefly, and for a moment Hux felt panic, wondered if someone had shot him in their sleep. He wiped his gory hands on the sheets, and spared a glance at their mark, whole but bound and gagged, unconscious on the bed. Then he crouched next to Ren, realizing with dizzying relief that he was muzzy but unharmed. He did not bother removing Ren’s IV cannula, or freeing him from the tether. They could not spend too much time waking up - not when Phasma could no longer watch their backs for them. Besides, the dream was going to collapse soon, now that she was no longer here to dream it and serve as an anchor for its framework.

“Kylo,” Hux murmured softly but urgently, and then Ren opened his eyes and froze at the sight of the blood splattered all over Hux’s clothing, over his hands. 

“Bren -” Ren managed to hiss, going very white, “Are you -” 

“No, this blood is Phasma’s,” Hux glanced at the empty doorway behind him, drew his own sidearm, his grip sticky with dried blood. “Are you all right?” 

“My head hurts,” said Ren. He had still made no attempt to get up. “I don’t feel good.”

“We have to get out _now,_ ” Hux told him. He could hear footsteps, heavy ones, coming their way through the open door, and the room rocked heavily then as the world started to fall in upon itself.

“I know,” Ren said, and Hux turned back to him and pressed the muzzle of the Hi-Power against the side of his head, black Parkerized steel dull against his shiny black hair. 

“Good job down there,” Hux murmured, but Ren did not answer before Hux shot him. He lay, eyes closed, blood leaking out the neat hole in his skull, and then Hux held the still-warm Hi-Power against his own forehead, pulled the trigger - 

\---

For a brief moment Kylo Ren was disoriented, terrified as he opened his eyes to a blaze of light and nausea. The room started to spin, didn’t stop when he closed his eyes again. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears, and there was a nasty taste in his mouth as he flinched against the sensation of falling. 

“Ren?” Someone called his name in an urgent murmur, someone who he did not immediately recognize, nor was he particularly concerned with recognizing that voice. There was far too much going on in his head right now - the leftover panic from two layers of dream missions gone frighteningly wrong, this sick feeling he had in his gut, the headache and this sensation of vertigo ringing in his skull. 

“He told me he was ill before we woke up,” came Hux’s smooth voice, his Received Pronunciation accent clipped and precise, and Ren felt a wave of reassurance rushing in against all that fear and panic, mingling uneasily with the nausea. If Hux was there, everything would be okay. “Kylo?” Cool hands took hold of his wrist, a gentle familiar touch, and there was the tiny sting of the cannula leaving his flesh. His fingers and toes tingled oddly, and he felt groggy. And then Hux was stroking his head gently, pushing his hair away from his sweaty brow. The touch felt good. He opened his eyes again, risking more nausea, but the room remained steady this time. Hux was leaning over Ren, his brow furrowed with concern, pale blue eyes flicking quickly over him in a quick assessment.

“Bren,” he managed to say, before the word turned into a weak retch, and he shivered and rolled onto his side. It might help with the vertigo. He saw Phasma sitting on the floor across from him, her face in her hands as someone else helped her with her IV line - Mitaka, Ren remembered belatedly, Doph Mitaka, another field agent from Langley, lookout and babysitter on this mission while Hux, Phasma and he had gone under with their mark. 

It all started to come back, albeit from a great, foggy distance as though his head were full of clouds. _Belgrade,_ Ren remembered. _We’re in Serbia._ He was currently lying on the cold, hard marble floor of a slightly shady massage parlor in Belgrade, and the man currently lying face-down on the massage table was Denisov, their mark, the arms dealer. His bodyguards were currently waiting outside while he got a “massage”, and Phasma had cased the joint and bribed the girl with a fat roll of Euros for access before Denisov had even arrived for his appointment. 

This was the first time they had managed a multi-level dream in the field, and at this point Ren wasn’t sure if that had been a great idea in the first place, given how he was feeling now. But then, Denisov had been a nasty, paranoid kind of man, and he had not given up his secrets even at gunpoint, in the first level of the dream. 

“Are you well enough to stand? We need to leave soon,” Hux told him softly, and Ren tried to nod, regretted it as nausea bubbled again slickly from the pit of his belly. “Come on,” Hux told him, and Ren got his feet under him, leaned heavily against Hux as he got up, the room remaining mercifully still despite the movement. 

“I’m okay,” he managed, “I’m -” and then the room gave another lurch, and Ren’s knees wobbled briefly. Hux’s arms were around him, however, steadying him, and he did not fall. 

“Let’s go. Phasma’s not feeling that much better than you are herself, I don’t want to risk a fight with the both of you in this shape,” Hux said. Ren glanced at Phasma, who had gotten up from the floor to collect the PASIV. Traces of tears were drying on her face, and he remembered the blood on Hux’s hands and clothing when he had woken up from the second dream and tumbled into the first, his head pounding fiercely all the while. Ren had heard a gunshot just as he had woken up from the second dream, before he opened his eyes, and while he had not seen it, he had a good idea what had happened with Phasma before Hux had shot him, too. 

Phasma left the room first, and then Mitaka, and he found himself leaning heavily against Hux’s shoulder as they stepped through the doorway of the employee entrance into a hallway lined with shelves and lockers for the staff, one that opened into a laundry room. He hated to make Hux hold him up, but he was pretty sure it was that or crawl.

“Just pretend you’re drunk,” Hux murmured to him as they made their way to the service elevator; the mention of alcohol just made Ren’s stomach churn uneasily. Ren closed his eyes and pressed his face against Hux’s slicked-back hair, the scent of his lover’s hair and pomade steadying him a little, grounding him as they rode the elevator down to the bottom floor of the building.

Mitaka had a car waiting for them as they emerged into the streets of Belgrade, and Ren leaned gratefully against the back seat as Hux shut the door beside him, and then got in the front passenger seat. He felt the car move, the soft vibrations of its motor, and then they stopped again, and the back right door had opened, and a weight slid onto the seat next to him. Phasma, then, Ren thought as he opened his eyes experimentally. He found the world stable enough if he focused on the car’s dome light gleaming faintly in the pale glow of the streetlights outside. 

Phasma stowed the PASIV, now looking like any other aluminum briefcase, on the floor between her feet. She was still pale, her hands shaking slightly, and Ren reached instinctively out to her, squeezed her left shoulder gently with his right hand. He felt a brief tremor pass through her, and then he let go, unsure if he had breached any etiquette. 

Ren’s stomach lurched again as Mitaka cleared a road hump, and then there was the sudden, unexpected weight of Phasma’s head on his shoulder as she leaned wearily against him. “It’s okay,” he murmured feebly at her, unsure of what else to do. She was still technically his boss, but it was hard to remain detached in this situation, especially when he could feel her shaking against him. He did not turn his head to look at her, sensed that it would only shame her if he watched her break down, so he stared into the rear-view mirror and caught Mitaka’s gaze: Mitaka, who had remained utterly professional and disciplined through this whole affair, despite his obvious curiosity about how the dreamshare half of the mission had gone down. 

Phasma remained leaning against Ren’s shoulder for seven minutes of their drive to the safehouse - Ren had caught the time in the clock on the car dashboard as she had leaned against him, and he’d been watching the numbers crawl past since then. The nausea was coming back, worse than before, but he only had to last until they got home. He wouldn’t throw up, he wouldn’t. He would breathe, and it would be okay, and - the car turned a corner, and no, it wasn’t going to be okay, and he tensed his whole body against what it wanted to do. He could not, he told himself, throw up on Phasma. It could only lead to her with dirt on her shoes and a shiny new shovel in her hands as she walked, her stride exaggeratedly casual, away from a shallow grave in a forest somewhere in Serbia.

“Is this okay, Ren?” Phasma asked him softly then. He could hear her delicately pulling the shreds of her composure back around herself, the vague embarrassment in her voice when she spoke.

 _Yes,_ he wanted to say, and would have in any other circumstance. Right now, though, all he could manage was, “You might want to move, I think I’m going to be sick,” and Phasma stiffened against him. 

“Oh,” she said, before she lifted herself carefully off his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” Ren murmured gratefully, and at least the terror receded, if not the nausea.

“No, thank you for warning me,” Phasma said, and Ren had only hiccuped weakly then, his pathetic giggle fading almost immediately into another retch. To think he had been considering dragging Hux out to the clubs in Belgrade once they were sure the mission had been accomplished safely. Now even the thought of a disco floor flashing in his mind’s eye sickened him as the world wobbled seasick and watery around him. 

Phasma started to rub his shoulders gently through his coat. He closed his eyes and rested his elbows on his knees as his belly started to cramp, and he could only whimper and wish the ride was over so that the movement of the car wouldn’t keep triggering his vertigo anew. He felt so tired, wrung out from the effort of holding out against the nausea, and he just needed this cramping to ease off, needed to get home; then he could lie down and sleep for a while.

\---

Hux kept a careful eye on Ren and Phasma in the rear-view mirror, glad at least that Mitaka was driving so he could keep his attention on them. Bad enough that the mark’s projections had been armed and that Phasma had suffered so much for the mission’s sake, but Ren’s present state was alarming. Hux watched Phasma rub gently at Ren’s back as he doubled over, and frowned, a thread of real worry breaking through his composure and detachment to wrap tight and cold around his heart.

Ren had been fine when they had arrived in Belgrade - slightly jet-lagged but excited. He had joked about forcing Hux onto a dance floor provided the job went well, and nothing in his behavior or demeanor had suggested illness on his part. _Food poisoning?_ Hux thought then, but dismissed the idea. Ren had ordered the same entree as Phasma during lunch, and she would also be sick if that were the case. He glanced at Mitaka, who shot him a brief worried look, and then looked back in the rear view mirror again, continued to keep an eye on Ren until they reached the safehouse. 

Mitaka rolled up to the driveway in front of the safehouse, and Phasma helped a very wobbly Ren out of the back and into the house, her arm around his shoulders. Hux had Mitaka open the boot so he could pick up a nondescript black canvas bag - one that he had started carrying around every time they went on a risky mission - and left Mitaka to collect the PASIV from the back seat, where Phasma had left it, and lock the car as Hux preceded him into the safehouse. 

Hux went immediately to the bedroom Ren had been sleeping in for the past four days. Ren was stretched out on the bed, eyes closed, with his coat laid out on the sheets beside him. Phasma was working on his boots, and Hux pondered helping him remove his sweat-soaked black t-shirt, but put the thought aside. Ren not only wasn’t assisting with his boots, he wasn’t moving at all.

“What happened?” Hux asked Phasma. He dropped the bag on the bed beside Ren, shrugged his coat off and left it on the back of the chair that he pulled up to Ren’s bedside so he could sit down. 

Phasma frowned. “He passed out once I got his jacket off - it was like he was struggling to stay awake. He was feeling so awful, I thought it might be better, but now I’m not sure.” She tugged Ren’s right boot off, and then started on the laces of his left boot as Hux unbuckled Ren’s belt and removed it, reaching briefly beneath him for his holstered SIG and magazine carriers, which he left on the nightstand. Ren was limp and unresisting; his skin was clammy and Hux didn’t at all like the colourlessness of his face. This wasn’t good, whatever it was. But after all, he was a doctor. He could work this out.

Hux pulled a stethoscope and a portable pulse oximeter from the black canvas bag and clipped the oximeter on Ren’s right index finger, and raised the hem of his t-shirt to listen to his breathing. He could feel his own fear heavy in the back of his throat, forcing him into short, shallow breaths as he listened to Ren’s breathing and slow heartbeat, counted them out with each tick of his watch’s second hand. Fifty-eight beats per minute. Hux’s frowned briefly, unsure. Fifty-eight beats per minute was borderline bradycardia, but he was also aware of his own resting heart rate of sixty-two beats per minute, and how it was so because the requirements of his profession had demanded he condition himself physically. Ren and Phasma trained equally hard, and bradycardia could be benign in such cases, wasn’t even symptomatic until the pulse dropped below fifty beats a minute. 

But then he glanced at the pulse oximeter to check his calculations and spotted, also, the readout indicating Ren’s blood oxygen levels. A typical patient’s peripheral oxygen saturation, which the pulse oximeter measured, ran somewhere from ninety-five to ninety-nine percent at sea level. Ren’s oxygen saturation was an alarming eighty-eight percent - he was hypoxemic, his respiratory drive depressed. Hux tried to slow his own breathing with an effort of will, realized his hands had started to shake as he took a flashlight from his medical bag. He held Ren’s right eye open, noted the constricted pupils in both eyes as he checked his pupillary responses. _Miosis,_ he thought. This… he’d seen this before, in his A &E rounds, in his anaesthesiology lectures. A girl with too many pills; a man with an underlying condition that he hadn’t told the admitting team; a child given a dose for an adult. 

_No no no no no._ Hux could feel the adrenaline spike, a part at the back of his brain babbling in terror as his hands continued to shake. Flailing mentally, he seized instead the cold precision of medical protocol, the facts and procedure calming, grounding like the touch of cool stone against overheated skin. He had done this before. He could do it now.

 _I need his GCS score,_ Hux thought, _I need the rest of his vitals. Blood pressure. I need help with this, I need advanced life support equipment, I need to be able to intubate and ventilate him if he stops breathing, I need to stop thinking of him as Kylo or I won’t be able to help at all._ He could still feel the incoherence in the back of his mind as he put the flashlight back in the bag, turned again to Ren to gauge his level of consciousness. 

“Kylo,” Hux called, as Phasma watched him in mounting unease, “Kylo, can you hear me?” Ren did not respond, until Hux squeezed hard on his thumbnail. He flinched weakly then, pulled his hand away from the pain. Hux then pushed down hard on Ren’s brow, trying to gauge his level of consciousness. 

Withdrawal to pain, Hux noted mentally when Ren moaned in response but did not bring his hand up to his face. “Talk to me, Kylo. Say something.”

“Ow,” Ren murmured drowsily. “Hurts.” His eyelids fluttered open briefly as Hux pressed down on his brow again, but he did not wake fully. Hux thought his way through the Modified Glasgow Coma Scale. _Withdrawal to pain, four, disoriented speech, four, opens eyes only to painful stimuli, two._ Full consciousness scored a fifteen on the scale, but Ren had only scored a ten.

“Bloody hell,” Hux breathed, turned to Phasma, who was watching with fear in her eyes. “Nic,” he said breathlessly, trying not to hyperventilate from fear, “we have a medical emergency on our hands. I think somehow Kylo’s been overdosed on the sedatives. We’ve got to get him to a hospital - and I don’t think a local one is going to do.” 

“I’ll call HQ, tell them we need a medical evacuation,” Phasma said, an icy calm settling on her face as she slipped back into crisis mode. “Is there anything you can do right now?” 

Hux wanted to kick himself as he went mentally through the emergency protocols for benzodiazepine overdoses, remembering his A&E rotation in sudden, vivid detail. “I didn’t think to pack flumazenil - it’s a benzo receptor agonist, but there are usually too many contraindications for it to be useful in most cases. I can maintain his airway, but I don’t have a good long-term way to ventilate him out here in the field if he stops breathing,” Hux sighed, “which he might. We’ll need a medic to assist me on the way back to D.C., someone who can handle ALS protocol, oxygen, a portable ventilator, intubation gear for advanced airway management.” 

Moving more or less on autopilot, Hux reached back into the bag as Phasma started the call to their superiors on an encrypted line, took out the blood pressure monitor and wrapped the cuff securely around Ren’s upper arm. He put the earpieces of his stethoscope back in, and then listened to Ren’s pulse as he inflated the cuff, turning the dial to let out the air once the pulse stopped. Hux listened carefully for Korotkoff sounds as the cuff deflated, for the first audible signs of bloodflow returning to Ren’s brachial artery under the cuff. _Fifty,_ Ren’s systolic blood pressure read, and then Hux let the rest of the air out until the Korotkoff sounds could no longer be heard, for Ren’s diastolic blood pressure. _Eighty-five._ Ren was currently slightly hypotensive, his blood pressure lower than was usual. In practice a low blood pressure was problematic only if it was symptomatic, but Hux wanted to be cautious. He jotted Ren’s vital signs down in the notebook he kept in a pocket of his medical bag, along with the time and date, and tucked the sheets and blanket around Ren to preserve his body heat - his skin had been cool to the touch, and hypothermia was a known symptom of benzodiazepine overdose. 

That done, the next step was to get an IV into him. Hux took out a bag of Ringer’s Lactate from the medical kit and hung it up from the light fixture mounted on the wall above Ren’s bed. He unrolled the IV tubing to its full length and popped the bag with the roller valve run all the way up to the drip chamber, careful to avoid bubbles as he released the valve. He washed his hands in the half-bathroom adjoining Ren’s bedroom, and then put on a pair of sterile nitrile gloves as he sat back down at Ren’s side, only dimly registering the urgency in Phasma’s voice as he worked. She had moved out into the hall, and it sounded like she was going out to the living room, perhaps so as not to distract him. He put a tourniquet on Ren’s upper arm, where the blood pressure cuff had been, and then felt gently for his veins before he swabbed the skin with an alcohol wipe. He removed an 18-gauge IV catheter from its sterile wrappings, inspected it carefully, and fed the sharpened trocar bevel-up through Ren’s skin to pierce the vein beneath. 

After that Hux withdrew the trocar from the catheter, capped it and put it in a small sharps canister. He taped the catheter in place on Ren’s arm before connecting the IV line to the catheter hub and screwing it in place, then securing the IV line in place with more medical tape. This would hopefully address the hypotension, and intravenous access would be important if his condition did worsen. Hux had access to vasopressors - he carried norepinephrine in his medical bag, which would also address bradycardia, but now was probably not the time for that. In high doses it had side effects that included ischemia, and Ren’s pulse and blood pressure were still not low enough to require its use.

Finally, the most important step - he peeled off his gloves and took Ren’s hand in his. _Just keep breathing,_ Hux thought, unsure if he was reminding himself or Ren to do so.

A sick wave of shame and anger swept over him: he had been overseeing the intravenous administration of sedatives and somnacin in the field, and had done so for months without even knowing what somnacin did, strictly. He had not known its pharmacokinetics, if it had provoked an allergic response in test subjects, whether there was even an agonist available in the event of an overdose. And with the different formulas they’d been testing for the deep immersion of second-layer dreaming, it had been foolhardy of him at the very best not to expect that something like this could happen, not to push for as much information as they would give him.

Hux could not imagine being cleared to work with the substance without also being cleared to know about it, but then clearance was only half of the equation when it came to classified knowledge. Need-to-know was the other. If one was cleared, but did not need to know something, they would remain ignorant. If someone needed to know something, but did not have the right clearances, they would also remain ignorant. Only if an individual needed to know, and had the right clearance, were they permitted to access that information. 

Hux watched Ren breathe slowly, held the knuckles of his hand to his lips and tried not to panic. He was cleared for that information. And no-one could tell him now that he didn’t need to know what somnacin did. He kissed the back of Ren’s hand again, and stroked his fingers carefully while he considered the report he would have to make to HQ. It kept him from thinking of his mother, and her slow death in a hospital in Oxford - he could not even contemplate losing Kylo Ren like he had lost her, and his eyes burned and stung as he felt his resolve accumulate within him like a pile of rivets, hard and certain and white-hot as they held the shattered pieces of his hope together, glowing softly as they cooled. 

Hux was going to have words with Dr. Snoke when they returned to Langley.

\---

Phasma shut her eyes briefly as she ended the call on her encrypted phone, and then she looked down at Mitaka, who had left the PASIV on top of the coffee table, and who now sat in one of the armchairs in the safehouse living room. He had remained in the living room while Hux had tended to Ren, but he had also heard most of Phasma’s desperate phone call and was simply too sensible to ask redundant questions.

“I’m not leaving you guys,” Mitaka said by way of explanation, and Phasma did not ask him to explain his statement, only sank down on the sofa to the left of him and tried not to shake as her brittle composure started to crack and flake from the stress she was under. She sighed heavily, felt some of the tension leak out of her with the breath, but she was presently too stressed to even meditate - she simply couldn’t stop concentrating on the fact that her team architect was presently so ill that he could stop breathing at any given moment. Attempts at emptying her mind had only allowed her memories of the dream to resurface, with her slow, painful dying as she had choked on her own blood and fought to stay conscious with every bubbling cough. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t real - it had felt real enough, and that was all that mattered to her limbic system. 

“Do you need anything, Phasma?” Mitaka asked her, and she realized that she was tearing up, and that he had pulled a red polka-dotted handkerchief from a waistcoat pocket, and was offering it to her. Mitaka had once been one of the best-dressed men Phasma had known at Langley, until Hux had arrived and raised the formality bar significantly with his fishtail back trousers and suspenders, but they still somehow complimented each other when in the same room. Mitaka’s clever application of earth tones and patterns only highlighted Hux’s daring use of color, and together they sent the clerical pool whispering nervously when they passed by. She had always rather liked him and had not been displeased to have him along - but now she was suddenly very glad of his calm and caring face.

“I - thanks,” Phasma said as she took the handkerchief from him, dabbed at her eyes, oddly furious with her own weakness in this situation - this was not the time to fall to pieces, she reminded herself. Not while a team member she was responsible for was this close to dying. “I didn’t think anyone carried these any more.” 

“I do,” Mitaka shrugged. “What did HQ say?” 

Phasma fought a pang of anxiety, was proud of how steady her voice was when she spoke again. “They told me they’d get back to me once they got things straightened out. No estimation of how long.”

“Uh-huh. That means too long. Gimme a minute or three,” Mitaka said, as he pulled his own work phone out from the inside pocket of his jacket. “I think I can light a fire under their asses.”

“Who are you calling?” Phasma asked him suspiciously, but he only held a finger across his lips as he held the phone to his ear. 

“Hello? Bazine? It’s me, Doph. No, not Dope. Doph Mitaka. Very funny.”

Phasma knew the name the moment he said it - Bazine Netal had been a wetworker and field agent until she had pissed off enough people that the Agency had promoted her to a desk-riding position to keep her out of the way. These days she was attached to the embassy in Belgrade, where she spent her time indulging her misanthropy in rather more indirect ways, but she still possessed the collective meanness and spite of a nest of wasps if provoked. 

Getting Netal involved was the institutional equivalent of getting someone’s notice by sawing a frozen can of shaving cream open and lobbing the solid mass into their office, where it would expand as it thawed. That is, it was effective, but it was going to create a fucking mess and piss people off. Not that Phasma could care that much about the resulting mess, since it was going to be Mitaka’s promotions on the line in this case, but it touched her that he was willing to risk his own behind for her team’s sake. 

“Look, I know it’s two-thirty in the morning here. I’m sorry. HQ’s kept you in the loop, yeah?” Mitaka continued to Netal on the phone, “Yeah, I know that you know that I’m in Belgrade with Phasma. I know we didn’t ask you out for lunch, we were busy. I’d offer to make it up to you, but look, we’re in some trouble here.” 

He paused, and Phasma could just hear the smoky tones of Netal’s voice through the phone’s speaker - _What kind of trouble?_ Phasma made out. 

“We have a medical emergency and HQ’s dragging their feet about a medevac - no, I know you’re not a doctor. It’s not a trauma case, but it’s still bad. Look, I’ll let Phasma tell you what’s wrong, ok?” Mitaka glanced at Phasma, handed the phone over to her, and she held it up to her ear, oddly relieved to hear her old friend on the other end.

“Hey, girlfriend,” Netal said soothingly, her tone now completely different from the one she had used with Mitaka. “What’s the problem?” 

“Bazine, one of my people is dealing with a mission-related sedative OD,” Phasma said, resenting the fear that crept into her voice again, “and we don’t have the equipment or resources to keep him breathing if he stops.”

“And a local hospital would be bad for the mission, yeah,” Netal said, over the sharp rattle of keys in a keyboard. “What do you need?” 

Phasma closed her eyes and remembered what Hux had told her. “We’re going to need oxygen at the very least, medics, someone who can handle Advanced Life Support, a ventilator - and we’re going to need to get out of here without kicking up any kind of a fuss.” 

“Right,” Netal said, her tone of voice almost casual. Phasma found it incredibly comforting to hear Netal’s affected nonchalance again. “I’ll go bother some people. I’ll get back to you within the half-hour, Nic. We’ll get your boyfriend out of there.”

“He’s not _my_ boyfriend,” Phasma sighed, and Netal had only chuckled briefly before she hung up. She handed Mitaka his phone, and then his handkerchief, both exchanges wordless, because she simply didn’t know any way to thank him for his consideration and loyalty.

“He’ll be okay,” Mitaka told her as he put his phone back in his pocket. “The Hornet gets shit done.”

“Yeah,” Phasma said, smiling a little at his nickname for her, “that she does.”

\---

Hux had just recorded Ren’s vital signs again when Phasma came into the room half an hour later. There had been no improvement in his condition, but at least his spO2 had not worsened. His breathing was still slow, slightly shallow, but his pulse was still strong.

“How is he doing?” Phasma asked him, as he put the notebook back in the medical bag. 

“Still breathing,” Hux sighed. He knew it was probably polite to look at her while she addressed him, but he did not want to take his eyes off Ren - felt terrifyingly certain that Ren might simply stop breathing if he looked away, even for a second.

“That’s good,” Phasma said as she sat down heavily at the foot of Ren’s bed, and Hux was reminded suddenly of how she had died in his arms less than an hour ago. She had sagged limply against his shoulder as he had held her sidearm to her temple, he remembered, so trusting as she had anticipated the relief of death and waking up from the dream-turned-nightmare. 

“Nic,” he asked her, using her first name so she knew that this was personal, “how are you holding up?” 

Phasma set her mouth in a firm, thin line, the expression more one of determination than anger, and blinked hard before she spoke again. “Not great,” she confessed. “I can’t stop thinking of how much it hurt. But I’ll be okay.” 

“You ought to talk to a professional, once we get back to D.C. Just because the trauma isn’t physical doesn’t mean it’s not real,” Hux murmured as he took Ren’s hand again. “Not me though. Conflict of interest,” Hux explained as she raised an eyebrow. Besides, he was not a therapist, would likely have made the world’s worst psychiatrist with his lack of bedside manner. 

Hux did not ask about her call to HQ, chose not to think about it, because he could feel his panic pushing hard against the walls he had built in the back of his skull every time he wondered how long it would take for help to arrive. The flight back to D.C. was going to take at least six to eight hours, and Ren’s symptoms were likely going to last twelve to thirty-six hours. Or, at least, they would if this were a straightforward case of benzodiazepine overdose, but the somnacin in Ren’s system likely complicated matters in a way that Hux could not predict with the limited information he had access to. 

Hux realized dimly then that his control was slipping again, his heart racing, and he closed his eyes and tried to push his fear back out of his current thoughts. But that was impossible. There was simply too much at stake. 

Hux thought again of his totem, of the brass key in his pocket, but he would not let go of Ren’s hand to reach for it. 

He had spent most of his life shying away from love and affection, sure that it was a trap, that he would destroy everyone he cared for. After all, he had destroyed his own parents, orphaned himself, and it felt to him sometimes that he had not so much avoided becoming his father as much as just managed to sublimate the hereditary cruelty and channel it towards acceptable targets in his work. Hux had been sure, in the beginning, that Ren would only be disappointed in him once he found out about the broken-glass thoughts that lurked beneath the stiff upper lip. 

And yet Ren had wanted Hux in all his imperfection and complexity, cherished him. And Hux loved him back with a desperation that frightened him, sometimes. He had never allowed himself to want anyone this badly, had fought his own feelings and tried to ignore Ren until the bitter end. But Ren had simply not given up, rasped away at Hux’s layers of resistance and fear, scraped him bare and raw until those buried emotions had come, at last, to the surface. No one else had believed this fervently in him to stay this long, and the faith Ren had in him was terrifying, exhilarating, like nothing else he had ever known. 

And now he had risked it all through his carelessness - through the assumption that Snoke knew what he was doing and that everything would be okay. 

How could he have been so foolish? How could he have let himself love someone, and then be so negligent about their wellbeing? 

“You couldn’t have known,” Phasma said, as though she was reading his mind. “He’s never had a reaction like this before, not even in our two-level testing.”

Hux laughed, a bitter and awful sound. “I could have. I was so worried about him surviving in combat, I didn’t even consider that the deeper sedation would be an issue. And that’s what I’m there to do, that’s the whole reason they hired me - I’m meant to know these things. I did anaesthesiology, Nic, how did I not know?” He stared down at Ren’s hand in his. “I should have vetoed the plan back at Langley, found some other way to approach Denisov. There had to have been another way. There’s _always_ another way. But I didn’t look for it. And now we’re here.”

He couldn’t really blame Snoke for this, he thought. They were all guinea pigs. It wasn’t, he was sure, a double- and triple-tested protocol that had gotten them into this situation, but putting the blame entirely on Snoke’s shoulders wouldn’t help right now, no matter how much he wanted to. And he was also honest enough with himself to know that he was mostly trying to displace his own sense of shame. 

His throat hurt. His throat hurt, and his sinuses were burning, and he couldn’t stop it. He squeezed Ren’s hand harder, for a moment, wishing futilely that he would squeeze back, that his eyes would open, that this would all be over, and tried to convey his promise through the clasp of their hands: _Nothing is going to happen to you, Kylo - not on my watch, not on my shift. I failed you, but I won’t do it again, not while I still draw breath._

Slow tears leaked from his eyes to run down his face like blood from a shallow cut, and in that moment he did not care that Phasma could see him like this. His whole body ached with the knowledge that this was his fault. The least he could do was admit to it.

“Oh, Bren,” Phasma breathed, and then she was gripping his shoulder hard, the touch brief. In that moment Hux felt a faint thread of strength pass between them, knew that Phasma herself was not about to let Kylo Ren die either. The thought comforted him more than he had expected it to, and he thought then of Mitaka, of the worried look they had exchanged in the car on the way to the safe house. He was not alone in this. Ren was not alone in this. Others were just as invested in Ren’s survival as he was. 

_I can do this,_ he thought, then a few seconds later, _No. We can do this. Together. Just keep breathing, love. We’ll take care of the rest._

\---

Bazine Netal was as good as her word. Phasma got a text message from a number she did not recognize on her encrypted work phone exactly half an hour after she had hung up. _Expect calls from D.C and London soon, medevac eta 2h+, cavalry 30m._

Netal had not been privy to this specific phone number, and yet it did not shock Phasma that she had dug it up somehow, even while riding a desk in Belgrade. And then her phone buzzed again, and she did not have time to reminisce about the past. There was a brief wait for the encryption handshake, and then the person on the other end spoke. 

“Phasma,” he said - it was Eliot Benning, the closest person Phasma had to a direct superior, lowest man on the dreamshare oversight totem pole. “Your request for assistance and medevac has been approved. We’ll be coordinating with elements from Vauxhall and people on the ground in Belgrade.”

“Right,” she said cautiously. Benning sounded cranky and frustrated - the usual consequences of having Bazine Netal calling one’s personal phone in the middle of a pleasant dinner to leave very specific and colorful language describing the situation and the consequences if certain things were to be left undone. It was her talent for description that had led to her being stuffed in an office in an embassy, where it served her far better than it ever had in the field. 

Benning sighed loudly before he spoke again, his distinctive Rhode Island accent growing stronger as he got more annoyed. “Netal’s headed your way herself, with medical assistance for the wait until your ride arrives, so hang in there. I’ll call you again later if something else comes up.” 

The news was something that Phasma greeted with cautious optimism, even as she mentally racked up what these favors would cost, unofficially. “Is there anything else?” Phasma asked him.

Benning was briefly silent, as though he were thinking of what to say. “Yeah,” he said at last, “You might want to warn Mitaka that about five or six people want him to see them immediately after he gets back to D.C. and he’s probably never going to hear the end of it. Hell, I want him in my office the morning after he gets back to the US, so you can tell him that, too.” 

“Will do,” Phasma sighed, and then Benning hung up without further comment. She took a deep breath and glanced at the kettle she had filled a few minutes ago and placed on an electric hotplate to boil. The coil on the hotplate had rattled and creaked softly as it heated up, but the water in the kettle had not started boiling yet, and Phasma stepped away from it, left the tiny kitchenette where she had been sitting and walked again to Ren’s bedroom, where Hux was keeping vigil. 

Phasma blinked once in surprise when she found Mitaka sitting at Ren’s side instead, his work phone in his hands as he kept a careful eye on the oximeter clipped to Ren’s index finger. Ren was still unconscious, the blankets tucked over his chest. She glanced briefly at the IV bag, watched briefly as drops of Ringer’s Lactate continued to drip slowly into the drip chamber at the top of the IV line. 

“Where’s Hux?” she asked Mitaka. 

“In his room upstairs,” Mitaka said, and shrugged. “I told him to go take a break.”

“I’m surprised he did.” Phasma leaned against the doorframe wearily. She wasn’t sure if Mitaka knew anything about Hux and Ren’s relationship - it was not something they generally advertised at work, except for that one time in Luxembourg.

Mitaka shook his head slowly. “Oh, he didn’t want to,” he said, “but I told him he wasn’t going to be able to take care of anyone if he didn’t at least try to take care of himself.”

Phasma snorted bitterly, remembering Benning’s admonishment over the phone. “Funny you mention that, Mitaka,” she said, “because you’re not going to be able to take care of anything if you don’t do some major ass-kissing back home. Benning just told me you’re on at least six shitlists for getting Bazine involved, his included.”

Mitaka shrugged with mock nonchalance, but his brow was furrowed faintly in worry or concentration. “I’ve been chewed out before. My fiancée’s a lawyer, and she’s Chinese-American. I don’t think Langley has anyone who can out-guilt-trip her, I can deal with it.” 

“And if they shitcan you and show you the door?” Phasma did not think that Mitaka was in any real danger of losing his job over what he had just done, but his seeming carelessness over the matter seemed out of place in someone who was this good at his job.

“Then dodging her parents’ questions about what I do for a living becomes a lot less important in my life.” Mitaka rocked back in the chair, fidgeted a little with his watchband. “But seriously, my job security isn’t as important as Ren’s life. I don’t think I would want to be the guy who let someone die just because I was scared of a lecture.” 

“I’ll remember this, you know,” she said. Nothing else seemed adequate to express her gratitude without also sounding insincere.

“Don’t worry about it.” Mitaka shot her a brief smile before he leaned forward again, elbows resting on his knees as he glanced again at the oximeter’s readout, nodded soundlessly to himself. 

“I’m going upstairs to check on Hux,” Phasma said, and Mitaka nodded again, absently, as she pushed off against the doorframe and straightened up to leave the room. 

Phasma was glad, awfully so, that Mitaka had not left them to deal with this alone, and that he, too, was looking out for Hux. As thinly stretched as she felt, she knew Hux was much worse. She was sure he had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown when she had spoken to him earlier. He had wept openly - something that Phasma had thought, frankly, impossible. Sure, as Rory he could have howled the walls down and it would not have shocked her, but she knew how miserable Hux could be on a personal level and still keep the stiff upper lip in place. 

As team leader, Phasma had access to parts of Hux’s dossier that he probably did not know even existed - his psych profile, details of previous field operations, even transcripts of mandatory counselling sessions following failed missions. Everything she had read had indicated his strength and resilience, his professionalism and sangfroid in the face of things going terribly wrong. Phasma was deeply impressed by Hux’s ability to keep working presently while he feared for Ren’s life, even while he was convinced the situation was entirely his fault. It reinforced that impression of unshakeable competence, and made her wonder, too, what it would take to get more than a few tears out of him. Phasma wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know how bad things would have to be for Hux to fall entirely apart.

Hux’s bedroom door was open when she stepped out onto the landing from the stairs, and Phasma saw that he was packing his suitcase and toiletries with brittle economy, his movements automatic, no wasted energy. His gaze was dull and distracted, and she could not remember him ever looking this stressed before. 

A part of Phasma felt a strange tearing feeling internally, a raw, ragged edge of pity for Hux mingling with her anxiety over Ren. Another part of her, the side that was cold and hard and analytical, wondered if this was going to be a problem in the future, if anything else might go wrong, especially with Ren, on another dangerous mission. It was in the grand scheme of things not a massive problem, not when he still functioned well enough to do all the right things.

“Bren,” Phasma called to Hux from the doorway of his room. He paused slowly, and then looked up at her, blinked as though he were emerging slowly from a waking nightmare. “I’ve news,” she continued. Hux nodded wordlessly and waited for her answer, and she read that hesitancy in his face, saw how he had just pushed his emotions back and away and draped this brittle composure over himself like a tarp, lashed it around himself and used it simultaneously as prop and restraint. 

“I just got a call from D.C. a few minutes ago,” Phasma told him, “They can’t get anyone out to us in less than two hours, but one of the agents attached to the US Embassy here at Belgrade will be here in twenty minutes, give or take, and she’ll be bringing medical assistance.” 

“Good,” Hux breathed, softly, shut his eyes briefly. “Phasma,” he sighed, “I’m sorry. I should have managed my emotions better just now. You have enough to deal with without me going all soggy.” Tremors prefigured in his hands, but she saw him hold himself still with an effort of will, stoic and British and proper all over, again. 

“I don’t require you to be an automaton, Hux, only that you do your job,” Phasma said. “Which you are doing incredibly well right now.” The kettle on the hotplate started to whistle distantly as the water boiled, and Phasma remembered belatedly that she had filled the kettle, had wanted a mug of tea before Benning had called. “Come downstairs,” she told Hux, “I’ll make us some tea.”

Hux stepped away from his open suitcase to join her on the landing. She could see the stiffness in his posture ebb a little as he processed their conversation, the shame in his eyes even as he dared to hope a little more than he had before. “I do want a cup of builder’s tea,” he sighed, as she started down the stairs before him.

Builder’s tea, Phasma thought, strong, milky, with two teaspoons of sugar. Soothing and fortifying at once. Not his usual prescription, but very sensible under the circumstances. “That we can do,” she said. “I wonder if anyone’s left any biscuits for us.”

Hux smiled faintly then, the expression brief but genuine. “I should have bought a packet when we were at Heathrow.” 

“There’s always next time,” Phasma said. There would have to be a next time, she told herself. Nothing was going to happen to Ren. 

Hux looked at her, read the thoughts in her facial expression, and nodded, gravely. “There will be,” he agreed.

\---

“They’re together, aren’t they?” Mitaka asked Phasma as he wandered into the kitchen for his own mug of tea. Phasma had filled three mugs out of habit, and then belatedly realized that Ren was in no condition to drink his tea. Thankfully Hux had assumed she had poured the third mug for Mitaka, and he had presumably mentioned it after he had left to relieve Mitaka at Ren’s bedside.

“Yes,” she said as Mitaka sat down at the dinette table. There was no point in dissembling. He was asking her to confirm his suspicions instead of just asking her right out, which meant he was probably already sure. Phasma was an excellent liar, herself, and Hux was normally a grandmaster of self-obfuscation, but there had been enough fear and grief in his face in the past two hours, so many little tells that might as well have screamed _WE ARE LOVERS_ in bright neon letters to any reasonably astute observer. “I’d appreciate it,” she continued, “if you didn’t decide it was important enough to tell Benning, or anyone higher up on the totem pole, about.”

“It’s not my place to say anything, Phasma,” Mitaka shrugged as he blew carefully at the still-hot tea in his mug. “Besides, you’re their boss, and it’s your call. They’re obviously managing to stay professional, seeing as you’re asking me not to tell anyone, because you’d boot them out on their asses so hard they’d reach escape orbit if they were screwing things up. By screwing. I mean. Okay, that was funnier in my head.”

Phasma laughed then, less at the tired joke and more at how Hux and Ren had nearly given her ulcers with their unprofessional behavior just a little more than two months ago. _You don’t know the half of it, Mitaka,_ she thought, but this was not the time to discuss such matters, and Mitaka was not the right person to discuss it with, in any event. 

Mitaka smiled sheepishly at Phasma’s weak laughter, relief visible in his frank, honest gaze. “I guess my sense of humor is good for something besides provoking breakup threats.”

“Doph,” Phasma sighed, half-amused, “your sense of humor is grounds for annulment.”

“Ouch,” he said. 

They had sat, nursing their teas in silence for the next two minutes, before Phasma’s phone buzzed again. She put her mug of tea down and reached into her jacket pocket for the phone, pulled it out to find another text message on its screen. 

_Whoever parked your vehicle left it in the driveway, so I’m parked right behind you. Let us in? B._

“Bazine’s here,” Phasma said as she pushed her chair back and pocketed her phone, turned to get the front door. 

“I’m just going to stay here in the kitchen,” Mitaka said with a brief, nervous grin, “until I’m sure she’s not going to murder me for calling her at two-thirty in the morning.” 

Phasma glanced out the peephole in the front door before she opened it, just to make sure, but the person waiting outside was most definitely Bazine Netal. She had somehow managed perfect clothing and makeup in the little time it had taken her to threaten several people on the East Coast of the US, coordinate with staff at Vauxhall, and somehow procure medical assistance for Ren before she had driven to the safehouse, and she stood with a lighted cigarette in her hand at the front step. Even through the peephole she looked like the second coming of Coco Chanel. Behind her was another woman wearing civilian clothes, but her blonde hair was regulation-short, and something about her bearing said _military._

“Where’s your casualty?” Netal asked Phasma without preamble as she stepped over the threshold, and Phasma noticed that her companion was carrying a bulky backpack with a size D oxygen tank strapped to it. 

“He’s in the bedroom there,” Phasma pointed down the hallway. “Talk to Dr. Hux, he’s with the patient,” she told the woman. “He’ll be able to tell you more.” 

“That’s Doc Meanie,” Netal smiled thinly and shut the door behind her, turned the deadbolt. “She’s a Navy corpsman attached to the Marine guards at the embassy.”

“It’s Meanley, Netal,” the woman said wearily as she continued down the hallway, and then Netal was hugging Phasma tightly, the singed-tobacco smell of cigarette smoke mingling uneasily with the violets and aldehydes of Chanel No. 5, the scents enveloping her in an oddly comforting aura. She was almost as tall as Phasma in her four-inch heel Louboutins, a slender figure in a charcoal-gray skirt suit, and she pinched the end of the cigarette out between unmanicured fingers after they had parted from the hug.

“Don’t pay attention to her bitching, Nic,” Netal murmured soothingly, “She’s just pissed-off that I rousted her out of bed at this hour.”

“God, Bazine, I’m sorry we had to get you out of bed at this hour.” Phasma could see the dark circles around her eyes, and knew that they were only about fifty percent smoky eyeshadow. Deskwatching in an embassy wasn’t physically intense work, but it was fairly stressful nevertheless. Netal likely needed all the sleep she could get, which was probably not much. 

Netal waved Phasma’s apology off with a casual gesture. “You assume I need to sleep. I just need to hide from the sunlight in my coffin during the day, is all.”

“Is that what you’re calling your office now?” Phasma asked, amused. Netal wore a lot of black, yes, but she was in no way goth - Ren probably had a surer claim to the epithet. And then she heard Hux speaking to Meanley, the tone of his voice brisk and professional as he relayed Ren’s vital signs to the medic, and she felt herself start to sag again. 

Netal did not answer Phasma’s question. She only rummaged around in her alligator-skin purse, and then pulled out a polished hip flask, held it out to Phasma wordlessly.

“What’s in there?” Phasma accepted the flask dubiously, but did not unscrew the lid. It was heavy, full enough that it did not slosh when she handled it. 

“Slivovitz,” Netal shrugged as they entered the living room. “I thought you might need it, and I was right: you do look like you need a drink.” 

“You are an absolute godsend,” Phasma sighed. She uncapped the flask, and then threw back a stiff shot of the liquor. Netal had brought the good stuff - it was smooth and fiery, smelled of plums and almonds from the plum pits, and it made Phasma’s fingers and toes tingle with a flush of much-needed warmth. 

Netal waited for Phasma to wipe the mouth of the flask with her sleeve, and then took it back, knocked back a shot herself. And then Hux emerged from Ren’s bedroom. His red hair was tousled despite the pomade. Phasma remembered him running his hands through his hair earlier, in a brittle display of unease. He was trembling visibly from a mix of exhaustion and relief, his suit jacket rumpled from where it had rested on the back of his chair for the past hour. Netal glanced at him, her glance flicking coolly over his sweaty brow, the tremor in his hands, the stethoscope draped boa-fashion around his neck, and then she handed the flask of slivovitz to him without another word. 

Hux glanced at Netal briefly. “Thank you,” he breathed, and then he took the flask from her outstretched hand and swigged twice from it, shuddering briefly as the slivovitz burned its way down his gullet. 

“Finish it if you want, honey,” Netal told him. “You look like you need it a lot more than we do.”

“That -” Hux drank again from the flask, sighed softly. “That I bloody well do.” The plum brandy brought some color back to his face, making him look a little less like a painting recovered after a flood, washed-out and indistinct. 

“Things will be okay,” Netal said, “Meanie knows what she’s doing. Your boy will be okay.” 

“He’s not my boy, Bazine,” Phasma sighed, unsure if Netal had been addressing her, or Hux, or the both of them. 

“I wasn’t talking to you, Nic.” Netal smiled wickedly, her teeth very white against her blood-black lipstick. Hux opened his mouth to say something then, thought better of it, and then just handed the flask back to Netal and turned around to step back into Ren’s room. 

“Goodness,” Netal whispered as she put the flask back in her purse, took Phasma’s elbow and steered her gently towards the kitchen. “Did Vauxhall assign him to your team just to show Langley how pretty their field operatives are?”

“You know I’m not really interested in men that way,” Phasma said slowly, “but sometimes I wonder.”

Netal shook her head in a slow arc as they entered the kitchen proper, “I’m not sure I could do it, myself, so I’m glad it’s you.”

“What?” Phasma asked, confused, even as Mitaka hunched down at his spot at the table and tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. 

“I don’t think I could work with Dr. McDreamy over there without getting in trouble with HR.” Netal fanned herself briefly, exaggeratedly, and sat down at the table, next to Mitaka. “I’d spend too much time fantasizing. God, that Savile Row suit. I just want to unwrap him like a Christmas present.”

“Good to know you still have your priorities straight,” Mitaka said, and then he yelped as Netal placed one of her stiletto heels carefully down on the instep of his foot. 

“Don’t you start, Dope,” Netal said then, as she let the steel-shod heel dimple the leather of Mitaka’s loafer, “You still owe me for getting me out here at this hour.”

“You know I can’t repay any of those favors if you maim me, right?” Mitaka asked, his expression oddly calm for someone who was about to be pinned to the floor with a four-inch metal spike. 

“Maybe I’ll just pull a Shylock and take my payment in flesh,” Netal said, her grin much too nasty for anyone to be comfortable with, before she took her heel off Mitaka’s foot. “At least I get to spend time with Nic again, so I guess I’ll just be merciful this time.” 

“I’m almost afraid, Bazine,” Phasma sighed wearily, “to ask what you did to get Benning to sign off on the medical evac so quickly.” Phasma knew Benning to be a good boss, but he was all too often hemmed in by the demands of his own superiors, which limited his ability to be helpful to his subordinates during crises.

“Oh, I just called his work phone and reminded him that I grew up helping my dad turn calves into steers, and that human anatomy isn’t that different in that respect,” Netal purred, with more mock-nonchalance. “Did you know he was having a romantic dinner with his wife when I called? It’s their anniversary, apparently.”

“That’s… efficient,” Phasma said carefully, realizing the kind of trouble Mitaka was going to be in once he set foot back on American soil. 

Netal waved the dubious compliment away, continued. “Oh, and then I repeated the process with several other people in D.C. until they agreed that asking Vauxhall for assistance was a good idea. There’s not exactly a security concern here, considering who Dr. McDreamy still has to report to at the end of the day. Did you know a couple of those assholes were actually thinking of having you wait eight hours for a team from Langley to arrive?”

“I made the right call, then,” Mitaka said quietly, gravely, and Netal patted him briefly on the shoulder then. 

“You did,” she said quietly, the archness and humor leaving her face for the moment. “Which is why I forgive you for the unholy hour and everything.” Underneath the façade was a hint of steel, a flash of weariness which told everyone present how seriously she was actually taking things.

Mitaka seemed completely unsurprised by her uncharacteristic gentleness, just shrugged briefly and gestured at his empty mug of tea. “Thanks, Hornet. Do you want something to drink?”

Netal shook her head. “I’m good,” she said, “but it’d be nice if you poured one for Meanley. I’d offer to threaten a few more people to make sure you don’t get yelled at too badly at Langley, but I think that might be counterproductive.”

Mitaka pushed his chair back and stood to refill the kettle, put it back on the hotplate. “I’m a big boy, Bazine. I can take my lumps.”

“Yeah, you’re sickeningly good at that, with your stupid choirboy face,” Netal grinned briefly, and then the expression faded, was replaced with her usual cynicism. “It’s like your resumé is made of rubber or something. They’re probably going to just chew you out a bit and put the fear of God into you. I wish I could get away with the shit you pulled sometimes.”

“You think it has anything to do with the way you keep casually threatening to remove important parts of your superiors’ anatomy?” Mitaka asked half-seriously, an eyebrow raised as he sat back down.

Netal shook her head, and a lock of her dark brown hair slipped from her loose chignon to fall across her pale brow, marring the dramatic arc of her pencilled brows. “Nah, the puppy-dog eyes thing never worked for me even before I transitioned. I think the folks back in Langley are still having trouble with me really being a girl. Belgrade is nice, though, and it’s only become nicer since I managed to get the DCM by the short and curlies.” 

“What on earth did the deputy chief of mission do to get in trouble with you?” Phasma asked her, sensing the story in that fragment. The seething kettle on the hotplate rumbled then, and then whistled sharp and clear, and Phasma stood up to pour more boiling water for another mug of tea, dropped a teabag into the mug to start it steeping for Meanley. 

Netal sighed, pulled her half-smoked cigarette from a pocket of her charcoal-gray jacket and held its lipstick-smeared filter between her fingers. “Penny-pinching bastard took his shoes to an unauthorized cobbler to save a buck, came back with bugs in his nice new soles and now the FSB knows way too much about our coffee machine not working and our toilet paper supply budget. I should really file that report about it soon, but I have so much else to do. He really likes it when I’m busy.”

“Too busy to file that report?” Mitaka asked as Netal took a lighter out from her purse, flicked at it until it lit, a small tongue of flame hovering upright in the still air, above her curled fingers. 

“Maybe,” she said, her smile wicked and knowing again, and then she lit her cigarette and took a grateful drag.

\---

Hux caught himself with a twitch and a jolt as he fell asleep seated in his chair, glanced around to reassess his surroundings. Ren was still unconscious in the bed next to Hux, but he now had a non-rebreather mask strapped over his face. His vital signs had improved slightly, his oxygen saturation especially, since Meanley had hooked him up to the D-tank of oxygen she had carried with the rest of her equipment. She now sat opposite Hux, in a chair on the other side of Ren’s bed, jotting his vital signs down in the notebook Hux had used previously.

Hux checked his watch, did some rough calculations in his head. The dial of his watch kept shaking, and he had tried to blink it still before he realized that the tremor was in his hand and not his vision. The agent from the US Embassy in Belgrade had arrived half an hour ago with Meanley in tow, which meant that nearly an hour had passed since Phasma had given him the news upstairs and summoned him for a cup of tea. That left an hour more to wait before the promised evacuation crew would arrive. 

“You should sleep, Doctor,” Meanley said as she put the notebook down, pocketed the pen she had been using. She reached then for the half-full mug of tea on the nightstand next to her and sipped gratefully at it. “I can keep an eye on him while you’re out.”

Hux drew a deep breath that flooded his head with light, left him feeling vaguely dizzy. “He’s my patient. I’m responsible for him,” he said, let out the rest of the breath in a long sigh. He regretted the slivovitz somewhat - the alcohol was hitting him harder than he thought it would, and it was leaving him drowsy now that he was no longer running solely on adrenaline and sheer nerves. His eyes felt heavy and gritty, scratchy no matter how much he blinked, and a part of him was dimly aware that he was at his body’s limits. 

“With all due respect, Dr. Hux,” Meanley said over the rim of her tea mug, exasperated, “You’re in no condition to be responsible for yourself, let alone a patient. I know you aren’t in any chain of command I answer to, but I can still tell your boss - Phasma, is it? I can still tell her that you’re a walking wreck and you need to lie down for half an hour or more, but I’d rather leave you some dignity.”

“That wasn’t very respectful at all,” Hux said, a strange vague smile coming unbidden to his face, as though he were too tired to affect normal human emotion any more. He probed his emotions carefully and found himself curiously numb, as though the alcohol in the slivovitz had worked more on his soul than on his physicality.

Meanley snorted. “I said due respect, Doctor, and you won’t be due any if you keep acting like a macho idiot instead of lying the fuck down.”

Hux sighed slowly and closed his eyes briefly. His eyeballs felt irritated, like hot coals in his skull, and he could sense the absolute truth in what she had just told him. He was in no condition to be responsible for a patient, even (perhaps especially) if that patient was Kylo Ren. He’d done enough damage already.

“I’ll just rest here for a while,” he conceded.

“No you don’t, Doctor,” Meanley sighed as she put the tea mug down to rummage in her medical bag, held up a sterile-packaged hypodermic syringe and an ampoule of medication, shook the items threateningly at Hux. “Don’t make me sedate you and carry you over my shoulder. Get up from that chair and find an actual horizontal surface to lie down on, preferably a bed, before I wind up with two patients on my hands.”

“Yes, mum,” Hux sighed, beaten, and Meanley waved her hand at him with a shooing motion as he got slowly up from his chair. 

“I’ll come get you if I need you,” she promised, more gently, and Hux nodded as he left the room, climbed slowly up the stairs. It was a little ridiculous how heavy the world felt presently. It was as though gravity tugged more at his limbs, as though he were mired in a personal singularity, as he staggered to his bedroom and glanced wearily at the open suitcase on the bed. He had almost finished packing, he remembered, but did not bother to push the suitcase aside as he shrugged off his coat and lay down on the other side of the bed, atop the sheets and duvet with his boots still on. He would just close his eyes for a few minutes, he told himself, get some rest. 

Hux fell asleep the moment his head brushed against the pillow, falling backwards into a warm oblivion born from sheer exhaustion, and he did not dream, did not wake until Phasma came to get him, a little less than an hour later.

\---

Bazine Netal was on her third cigarette and had been holding forth on the virtues of Belgrade as a duty assignment when a dull buzzing emanated from her purse. “‘Scuse me,” she said, before she put her cigarette down on the saucer she had been using for an ashtray. “It’s just my jar of angry bees.” She pulled out her work phone then, and then glanced at a text message on its screen.

“What is it?” Mitaka asked. He rubbed at his eyes briefly then, and Phasma recognized the exhaustion in his face, felt it herself as she pulled herself upright in her chair. 

“It’s Rodinon,” Netal said, referring to her Vauxhall counterpart working the British embassy in Belgrade. “The medical transport crew from London is on the way here, so we had better clear the driveway so they can work.”

“Right,” Phasma said, wondering how her own voice had become so hoarse all of a sudden. “Mitaka, you go move the car, get back to your own safe house. I’ll go get Hux, get packed, then you can collect your stuff after that, we’ll meet -” she paused, cudgelled her brain briefly as her train of thought failed her. “Can we meet at the airport, Bazine?”

Netal picked her cigarette back up and put it in her mouth, spoke around it as she rooted around for her car keys in her purse. “I’ve arranged diplomatic passports for you all, appropriate covers and everything, and I’ve already spun this as US embassy staff being sent back for medical treatment. Mitaka, I can pick you up from your safehouse in an embassy car, chauffeur you straight onto the taxiway and you can board from there. I’ll give you a call when I leave.”

“I owe you,” Mitaka told Netal, all business now, and then he was striding briskly out of the kitchen, the tail of his double-vented coat _whooshing_ softly by Phasma as he left. She stood up then, and nodded to Netal, and they both walked out from the kitchen into the living room. Phasma turned to check on Ren in his bedroom as Netal stepped out of the front door. 

Meanley was sitting in her spot to the left of Ren, but Hux was nowhere to be seen, his chair empty. “Looking for the Doctor?” she asked Phasma. “I sent him upstairs for a nap about fifty minutes ago. Man was practically a zombie.” 

“Thank you,” Phasma said, slightly impressed that Meanley had somehow persuaded Hux to actually rest. “The transport team’s on the way here, so you’ll want to prepare to move Ren. I’ll be back in here to pack his things later.” 

“Yes’m.” With that Meanley got up from her chair and began to stow Hux’s equipment into his black medical bag with military efficiency. Her own backpack was already zippered shut on the floor beside her chair.

Hux had left his bedroom door open when he had gone upstairs, and Phasma found him curled up on his right on the left side of the bed, fitting loosely around the open suitcase resting on top of the covers opposite him. He had shrugged off his jacket and left it draped over the suitcase’s upright lid, and one of his cufflinks had worked itself loose to dangle from the open cuff of his right shirt sleeve. 

_He’s going to get a bruise from his magazine carriers lying on his side like that,_ Phasma thought as she glanced briefly at his shoulder holster, and then she reached out and took careful hold of his left shoulder, squeezed gently instead of shaking him awake. 

“Hux,” she said, softly, as he started to stir, “the transport team is arriving soon. We’ll be out of Belgrade in less than an hour.” 

“We’ll be -” Hux murmured, as he rolled onto his back, sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Thank you, Phasma,” he sighed, as he rubbed the grit out of his long-lashed eyes. “I’ll be downstairs in a moment.” He looked a little better for the rest, she thought. The dark circles around his eyes were still deep, bruisy-looking, but his pallor was no longer grayish, and he was no longer trembling from anxiety. 

Hux stepped out of his bedroom and vanished into the bathroom on the second floor, and Phasma headed into her own room to check her belongings. Fortunately she had little packing to do - experience had taught her to leave for the actual operational parts of a mission with most of her possessions packed up in case things went wrong and she had to leave the area in a hurry. She checked the nightstands and their drawers, the room’s small closet, and collected several items - the novel she had been working on currently, her drawstring bag with a new sock and a half-used ball of yarn in it, her zip-lock bag of travel-size toiletries. All of those went into her carry-on bag. 

Phasma carried her luggage downstairs to the living room and left the bags there before entering Ren’s room again to help pack up his things. There was a ring-bound sketchbook to collect, a clutch pencil jammed into its spine, his belt, the holstered SIG and magazine carriers on his nightstand. She put everything in his large duffel bag, went to the half-bath to see if he had left anything in there. She found in the bathroom his large net bag of toiletries, the elegant bottle of perfume sitting on the sink counter, a small bottle of lubricant and a strip of condoms in their wrappers, tucked into a neat roll with a rubber band around them. She put everything in the net bag, and then carried it out to his duffel bag where she dumped it on top of his sketchbook. The last thing she packed was his suit jacket, turning half of it inside out and nesting it in the other side, then folded it neatly twice so it would fit over Ren’s sidearm and magazine carriers in his carry-on bag, next to the toiletries and his sketchbook. 

Netal came in the front door just as Phasma had finished zipping Ren’s carry-on duffel bag up, and she looked in, and then stepped aside to let Phasma pass her into the living room. Behind her was a blond man, his build stocky, almost pugnacious in his light gray suit. That would have to be Rodinon then, Phasma thought. She put Ren’s duffel bag and suitcase down next to hers as Netal and Rodinon joined her, and Hux came down the stairs just as Rodinon’s team of medical technicians pushed a gurney in through the doorway. 

“I apologize for the long wait,” Rodinon murmured to Phasma as they stood together. His polished Received Pronunciation accent was almost a twin of Hux’s, and it seemed slightly strange to hear that mellifluous enunciation issuing forth from his barrel chest. 

“No, no.” Phasma shook her head. “It’s fine. It’s not like you can make planes fly any faster than they already do.” 

“I assume,” he continued as Hux passed them and vanished into Ren’s room to confer with the medics, luggage still in hand, “that you will be evacuating your casualty straight to D.C.? Or will you be stopping in Frankfurt or London instead?”

“That’s up to Dr. Hux’s medical opinion,” Phasma shrugged, “but he’s told me that he thinks transport to D.C. will be fairly straightforward as long as we’re equipped for the right supportive measures in case Ren’s condition takes a downturn.”

Rodinon nodded, pulled a phone out of his jacket pocket. “I’ll notify the flight crew, then. They should have the flight plan filed by the time we reach the airport.” 

“Thank you very much.” Phasma shook Rodinon’s hand then, and then sat down heavily on the sofa before her wobbly knees betrayed her. Hux looked as though he had gained a slight second wind in his brief nap, but Phasma’s own exhaustion rested a granite hand upon her shoulders, cold and heavy and crushing as her own reserves of strength started to give out. 

“You just sit here for a minute, Nic,” Netal told her, “and I’ll help get the baggage stowed away.”

“I can still help,” Phasma protested, but Netal ignored her and simply beckoned at Rodinon, who was still on the phone, until he handed her his car keys. She took the keys in her left hand and Ren’s suitcase in her right, and then strode out the front door. She returned for two more bags, and then Meanley joined her with Hux’s suitcase in her hand. 

“You get the last suitcase, Nic. I’m going to go pick Dopey up at his safehouse and drop Meanie back at the embassy.” Netal said around the unlit cigarette hanging from her lips. “Oh, and before I forget.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a fat, folded manila envelope, handed it casually over to Phasma. 

Phasma did not open the envelope, knew from the feel of it what its contents were - three brand new diplomatic passports for her team and the accompanying paperwork. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you, Bazine,” she sighed as she put the envelope away in the inside pocket of her jacket, and Netal smiled tiredly then, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards briefly. 

“It was good to see you again, Nic,” she said as she handed Rodinon his car keys and reached again for the lighter in her purse. “Stay in touch.” 

“I will,” Phasma nodded. “Meanley,” she said, before the corpsman left with Netal, “Thank you.” 

“I was just doing my job, but you’re welcome.” Meanley yawned hard, drawing the last word into an incoherent sigh as she sketched a brief salute to Phasma, and then followed Netal out. 

The medical technicians emerged from Ren’s room shortly after that, with Ren strapped to their gurney, still unconscious, wrapped in a blanket. They hesitated briefly at the threshold of the door and its front step, and then eased the gurney carefully out of the house onto the driveway and into the waiting ambulance. Hux emerged then from Ren’s bedroom, his own carry-on bag slung on one shoulder, with his black medical bag in his right hand. 

“Phasma. Rodinon,” Hux said by way of greeting, “I’ll be accompanying Ren in the ambulance.” The tone of his voice was a little curt, stretched curiously thin, and he was still clearly weary. Phasma caught a hint of hesitation when he had mentioned Ren, knew that he had reflexively wanted to use his first name. 

“We shall see you at the airport,” Rodinon said, returning Hux’s nod of greeting. He picked up the last suitcase unprompted as Hux left the house, and Phasma picked up the PASIV from the coffee table where it had been resting for the past three hours. She went through the safehouse again, one last time, making sure the hotplate in the kitchen was turned off and the lights were all out, and then she locked the front door and pocketed the keys. 

Rodinon had been waiting for her outside, and he politely opened the back door of the car for her when she had finished locking up. “Thank you,” she said as she got in the back seat and leaned her head wearily against the headrest; she closed her eyes to the sound of the engine turning over as he turned the keys in the ignition. Maybe she would just rest a little, Phasma told herself, until they arrived at the airport. 

She was asleep before she completed the thought.

\---

It was evening in D.C., and the overheated late summer air had given way slowly and resentfully to cooler breezes from the Chesapeake as night fell.

Ren had made it safely to the hospital, still unconscious but somehow, miraculously, still breathing, and had been admitted to a high-dependency ward until his condition improved enough for him to be downgraded to a regular ward. Hux, unwilling to let Ren out of his sight, had hatched a plan: he had used his work credentials to stay with him as an official minder - hospitalized individuals with clearances were almost always assigned a minder to make sure that nobody took advantage of potential disorientation or delirium to glean privileged information. So he had stayed at Ren’s side from the moment their chartered flight had landed in Dulles to Ren’s admission to hospital, and some time beyond that, in fact. 

He probably would still have been there had Phasma not arrived at six in the evening and insisted, in the strongest possible terms, that she would take the overnight shift. She had slept more than he had, on the plane, and the minder unfortunately had to be fully conscious and alert. He could only stretch himself so far. 

He had made himself accept her offer, in the end. There was no-one else in the world he would have trusted as much as Nic Phasma, and that trust extended to knowing that should he be needed, she would make sure he was there. But the fact remained that it felt wrong to be home, washed and shaved and in his comfortable room, instead of there at the hospital, where he belonged.

He couldn’t sleep, though. He knew he should try, and he’d even put on his pyjamas to try to convince his body that it was bedtime, but the fragmentation of his sleep patterns from the international travel and the fractured naps he’d snatched here and there had combined with the anxiety to make it completely impossible. He’d lain down, rolled over four times, and abandoned it as a waste of his time.

Instead, to feel as though he was at least doing something useful, he dug out the Moleskine he’d had in his jacket pocket all through the long plane trip and the afternoon at Ren’s bedside. He had been making notes, sporadically, as he thought of them, of all of the things that would have to go into his report to HQ.

The first thing on his list, though he didn’t expect it to get him very far, was to plug the PASIV into his computer and have a look at the logs the machine generated as it worked. It would be important to at least rule out equipment failure, or accidental misprogramming.

He went down to the living room to retrieve it, and stopped in the kitchen on his way back up to collect a glass and the bottle of Glenfiddich 12 in the cupboard. Perhaps a drink would help.

He connected the PASIV up to his laptop and started the diagnostics routine - it would take a while to run, so he would sit, and sip the Scotch like a civilized human being, and just try to relax enough that sleep might come. He could feel that he needed it. His eyes were hot and scratchy in their sockets and everything felt approximately half again as difficult to do as it should have done, which was an improvement over Belgrade but still not optimal.

It occurred to him vaguely that it would probably be wise to eat something - that he might even be hungry. He hadn’t had anything on the flight back to D.C., too sick with worry to be able to eat, and had snatched the world’s direst hamburger from a vending machine in the hospital several hours before when the shaking in his hands had grown too difficult to ignore. But his body’s signalling was confused, and there wasn’t a lot of food in the house; he shelved the idea for when it seemed more appealing.

It was too quiet in the house. He was not often alone, now, and he found that it was completely different being alone in a flat where one lived by oneself than being alone in a house where other people should have been. He felt the lack of them. Phasma was a quiet, considerate housemate, but even she made her presence known. And Ren was just a travelling vortex of post-punk and charcoal fingerprints and Lubin Korrigan, and Hux gulped quickly at the drink in his hand to dull how very badly he wanted those things right now.

For a moment, a moment that went on far too long, he considered going into Ren’s room, turning on the stereo, pretending that he was just next door and would come and bother Hux any minute as he stared at the PASIV logs.

No; that would be pathetic. He was a grown man, and he had existed before Kylo Ren and could exist in his absence now. Ren was in very little danger, under constant monitoring in a large and well-equipped hospital; he would not die. He would be fine, and in a day or so he would have to wake, and in a few more he would be home, and in the meantime Hux would bloody well get some work done, because it needed to be done. Phasma would almost certainly be given a few days of personal leave given how difficult the mission had been for her, but there were no protocols governing what happened when one’s teammate (who HQ didn’t know, and weren’t going to be told, was also one’s boyfriend) was hospitalised, no matter how dramatically dangerous it had been for them, if no actual injury had been incurred oneself. Probably he could have asked for a day, fought for it, had he really wanted it. But he didn’t. What he really wanted was to write this report, and talk to Snoke, and do anything at all to ensure that this never, never _ever,_ happened again.

The PASIV beeped, its subroutines complete, and he scooted his chair up to his desk and opened up the log files it had spat out for him, pouring himself a second drink as the file loaded.

As the team’s chemist, one of Hux’s main responsibilities from the very beginning had been to check and adjust the PASIV as necessary before every mission, ensuring that the flow rate and infusion output were correct and appropriate. He also prepared the vials of somnacin himself, labelling each one with the numbers 1 to 6, depending on which infusion cradle it went in. Phasma’s line was always 1, his 2, and Ren’s 3.

He knew he’d checked this PASIV out thoroughly before they had left for Belgrade, and he had the logs to prove it in their mission files. He also knew the settings he’d chosen shouldn’t have caused any problems. As Phasma had pointed out, this was not the first time they’d ever done a dual-layer dream, and Ren had never shown any obvious signs of being over-sedated before…

He leaned his face into his hand for a moment, his eyebrows drawing together. There had been that time early on, that flu that hadn’t actually been a flu or in fact been anything Hux could pin down, that _could_ have been just Ren’s body not being able to cope with a large amount of some highly experimental drugs. But - no. It was no good thinking that way. He didn’t know; until he had facts it was useless to speculate and only encouraged the paranoia he had quite enough of as it was.

He stared idly at the PASIV. It was so familiar now, every inch of it something he had been over time and time again, with his own two hands.

Something caught his eye, and for a minute, he wasn’t even certain why. But the vial in cradle 3, the vial that had been Ren’s -

\- that wasn’t his handwriting.

But it had to be his handwriting. He had labelled that vial himself, just as he always did, he remembered it, and it was the same black permanent marker he used, and the number was the same size as the others, so it had to be his eyes playing tricks on him, it was his handwriting -

\- it _wasn’t_. And he knew why he knew, then. His handwriting was something he’d always been proud of, almost vain about. It was beautifully consistent and he took pains to keep it that way, had quite fancied being the one doctor in the whole of the UK with perfect copperplate handwriting. 

He pulled out his notebook and a pen, and trying not to think about it, he quickly wrote the numbers 1 to 9, four or five times. His threes had a tiny, looping flourish at the start of the initial curve, all of them. The one on the vial did not.

He spun his chair around, and dug the notebook out of his medical bag, paged quickly through all the notes he’d made on Ren’s vital signs. He could not have been more distracted when he had written them, and yet, there was that little loop. Every single time.

He dropped the book back into his medical bag, took a deep and shuddering breath, and grabbed his drink, knocking it back in one swallow.

Someone had switched the vial. And they were hoping he wouldn’t notice. And in fact he hadn’t, not until it was far too late.

He felt his chest go tight. No, it simply wasn’t possible. He was overthinking this, seeing phantom conspiracies where there were none. There was nobody who could have switched those vials, except Ren, or Phasma, or Snoke. Why would any of them do that?

He made himself breathe, a full and complete breath, and then another, and another. Now was not the time to panic; he was working himself up into a state, and he’d not even looked at the logs yet. There had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation, even if for the life of him he couldn’t see what it was.

He leaned forward and stared into the screen. There was the adjustment set he’d made, just as he’d remembered making it. Those were his settings.

And then, where the next record should have been the operation of the device, in Belgrade, there was a second set of adjustments.

“No,” he said, out loud. “No, no, _no._ ”

Someone had gone in and increased the output and flow rate on line 3, an hour after he’d signed off on his changes. By which point the device should have been locked, and in Agency safekeeping.

He bit down on his thumb, and scrolled back up, farther into the past - to the last time they’d run the PASIV, and then the time before that, and…

Each and every time, he saw it, there in black and white on the screen in front of him. Someone had gone in and boosted line 3, sometimes directly after he had made his own adjustments, but sometimes hours later.

He reached past his glass for the bottle of Glenfiddich and took a swig directly from it, barely noticing the flavor of pears and butterscotch.

There was only one person who had the authority or the access to make those changes, other than him.

Dr. John Snoke.

He was shaking, now, again: rage and grief and the bottomless pit of the knowledge that _this wasn’t an accident._ His Kylo, his precious Kylo, had nearly died - could easily have just slipped away without any of them being able to stop it. Could have fallen into a dream and never come out again. Was still in hospital, hooked up to too many machines, and not here, with Hux, who loved him more than life and should have fucking known somehow -

He sank his hands into his hair and pulled hard, trying to center himself with the pain.

Why? Why would Snoke do this? Why would he knowingly, willingly, risk his favourite, his brilliant pet architect? It made no sense. 

The data couldn’t be telling him what he thought it was. He just had to be wrong. That was it. He was so tired, so worn, so crushed by the stress of everything that had happened in the last 24 hours, that he couldn’t interpret the logs correctly.

But underneath the certainty that that was the explanation, because it was the only explanation that left his world able to continue making sense, there was a tiny, deeper core of certainty.

He could not trust John Snoke.

And deeper still, not a certainty at all but a very, very strong hunch, of the sort no good doctor would ever ignore: he wasn’t wrong. Perhaps he didn’t have all the information yet, but he wasn’t reading those logs wrong. And someone had definitely changed out Ren’s somnacin. Which meant that something seriously, seriously shady was happening in Langley’s dreamshare department.

He pushed the fuzziness of the Scotch away from his mind with an effort of will. He would have to write this report. That was non-negotiable.

This information could not go into it. Not until he knew a great deal more about why. And not, he thought, until he knew exactly what had been done to Ren.

He cursed the ocean between him and all of his professional contacts. It would have been so much simpler, in London, he thought as he wiggled vial 3 gently out of its cradle and looked at the colourless dregs in the bottom. There was enough in there for testing purposes, but who did he have in D.C. that he could trust? It would have to wait. Which meant he was going to have to make sure no-one got to it before he did.

What a good thing he was a spy.

Very carefully, he peeled the label off the vial, and stuck it down on the vial that had been Denisov’s.

Ren’s vial he sealed, carefully, and set aside; then he set about taking screen captures and copies of all of the log files. He would need proof, when and if he brought these allegations to anyone. He knew that the volume of bureaucracy he would be up against would, even if nominally on his side, drag the process out without it.

The possibility that they might not be on his side… well. That was something he was just going to have to deal with if it came up. Vauxhall would take him back, he supposed, if he had to run. They wouldn’t be pleased with the Americans putting one of their assets at risk. But their protectiveness would be unlikely to extend to Kylo Ren, and he wasn’t going to leave Ren behind.

He pulled a thumb drive from his desk drawer and copied everything to it. It couldn’t stay on his hard drive. He didn’t know how much access Langley had, or who was looking, and it wasn’t strictly speaking data he shouldn’t have had access to, but if someone was hiding from him, they would be checking to make sure their tracks remained covered.

He thought about putting the drive back in his desk, then indulged the paranoia for once and didn’t. Until he knew who it was, how far up the chain this went… he didn’t even know if he could trust Phasma.

That thought made him feel ill. She was with Ren now. And if she wanted him dead…

No. He shook his head hard, trying to fling the thought physically from his mind. Nobody wanted Ren dead. Even if they did want to drug him beyond all sane dosage protocols, they weren’t doing it to kill him, or they’d have found an easier way to do it. Hell, if Phasma wanted Ren dead, she knew where he slept and cooked enough of his meals. No, this hadn’t been an accident, but neither had it been quite as bad as all that. He made himself breathe through the panicky queasiness until it left him. 

But the paranoia remained, and he pulled a sheet of paper out of the back of his notebook and folded it quickly into an envelope. He couldn’t trust that no-one would come into this house, go through his room. This place was CIA property and he was fairly sure they had the right. _So,_ he thought, looking around the room, _if I were searching this place, where would I look? And where would I reject as too complicated if I wanted to make certain that no-one could tell I had been there?_

He slipped the drive and the vial into the tiny envelope as he thought. The ceiling was plastered and although he thought he could get in behind the light fixture, if he had to leave in a hurry it would be hard to retrieve anything from there. The floor was plywood under carpet and totally useless. Nothing he knew of had hollow sections. Taping things to the tops of drawer cavities was too easy.

He signed his name and wrote the date across the flap of the envelope, then taped over it, making sure to leave a clear and purposeful thumbprint in the tape over his signature. Vauxhall would take that as enough confirmation that he could prove no-one had touched it since he’d sealed it.

Finally he hit on a solution. His dressing case had seemed too obvious, but it at least had a lock, and a better one than it had originally been made with. He’d had it replaced when he’d had the case restored and had decided he would keep his cufflinks in it; it wasn’t that too many of them were very valuable, but a number were vintage and irreplaceable, and he’d wanted to be able to lock it.

The envelope fit in nicely amongst his tins and jars of ointments and products. It wouldn’t attract attention, even in an x-ray scan. It wasn’t particularly hidden, if the case was opened, but for now, it would do.

He took the string with its key off the handle and hitched it to his totem instead, then locked the case.

That was the easy problem solved. He still didn’t know at all what to do about the contents of the envelope. He very much wanted to have this vial sent off for testing, wanted to know what else Snoke had spiked the somnacin with, but he could not think of any way to do so without either violating his clearance, the confidentiality agreement around somnacin’s formulation, or potentially alerting Langley to the fact that he suspected sabotage. The former was bad - Hux could very easily wind up imprisoned if he tried it, and the latter was worse if there truly was some kind of conspiracy going on. But it would wait, until he could come up with a truly air-tight plan, or until the situation changed.

What would not wait was the report. He sat back down at his desk and stared grimly at the computer screen. Between the Scotch and the lack of sleep, he wasn’t sure he could do it that night, not without slipping up somehow and giving the game away.

 _Think, Bren, think,_ he told himself; he let his eyes unfocus and the screen swam. There had to be a way to put in enough information that it was clear he’d done his job, and that he couldn’t be accused later of having been party to the sabotage if it became convenient to get him out of the way, but not so much that whoever was involved knew that he knew everything. Or even that he suspected something. 

What was the most important thing? All right. The vial. He couldn’t tell them about the vial without explaining why he had taken it out, why he was so sure there was something else in it, and then by reasonable inference why he had not wanted them to test it. That would have to stay a secret. But they would know, and would expect, that he had accessed the PASIV logs. That was standard protocol in the event of an equipment malfunction. 

He did the maths, carefully, two or three times over. If the infusion rates were taken into account, with the particular somnacin blend he had expected to be using, he thought he could probably stand up in front of a panel of doctors and tell them that Ren’s symptoms could be traced back to that and only that, and not raise any eyebrows. It would account nicely for the bradycardia and the depressed breathing.

All he could see now was the little room in Belgrade, and the oximeter, and Ren so still that every breath had been almost a surprise. How could anyone have willingly put him in that state?

So it was to be the infusion rates, then, and only them. Which meant he was still throwing Snoke under the bus.

He didn’t, he decided, feel very much regret about that. Nor should he be expected to, even in the hypothetical situation he was trying to write his report from: he was just a doctor, whose teammate had been injured in the line of duty due to what seemed to be… not sabotage, not a deliberate attempt to harm, but how could it be explained in non-confrontational terms when all it felt like was a calculated removal of Hux’s heart?

Just a doctor. Just a doctor, with a teammate. And - he laughed bitterly at the sheer force of the understatement - a workplace health and safety violation.

Yes. He would be allowed to be angry about that. Not as angry as he was, but enough, enough to run to HQ with this report and make it clear that he couldn’t allow this to go on. They were leaning hard enough on OSHA as it was, with the medical aspects of dreamshare involving so many opportunities for needle sticks or exposure to fluids. Nobody would like it if the few things they could actually sign off on as perfectly safe were being tampered with.

He made quick notes, dot points he could work on later. It was past eleven now and he could feel that he didn’t have much longer left before what energy he had would have to go entirely to keeping him functional, and anything complicated would be out of the question.

It felt like a betrayal as he wrote it all down. Ren deserved better from him, deserved for him to go storming into Benning’s office first thing tomorrow and demand some fucking justice. And he wanted to, he wanted so badly to. Just because it wasn’t wise didn’t make it less tempting.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thought, wishing he could say it to Ren, who deserved that much at the very least if that was all Hux could offer him. But he couldn’t even hear that, and Hux was here, alone in this house, and Ren wasn’t there, next door, where he should have been.

His hands were shaking again, and he eyed the Scotch, wondering if another drink would be too many. He let his fingers close around the neck of the whisky bottle, the glass cool and soothing under his touch. One more would tamp down the fear, the helplessness, the rage... 

He thought suddenly of his father. A phantom smell of gin whispered in the back of his mind; his wrists aching along the crisscrossing lines of long-faded bruises, he seemed to hear his mother crying, just as her sobs had sounded through the walls in the old house in Sussex. His heart sped in his chest, the heart of a young and frightened child.

No, he thought, remembering the way her copper-gold hair had waved on the pillowcase as she lay in a hospital bed. The whites of her eyes had been yellow, her skin greenish from jaundice and bruised at the slightest pressure, and her hand had felt so fragile in his grip. Another drink would only mask the problem, only numb him. Such numbness was seductive, addictive, and he could feel its allure. How easy it would be to just let the alcohol forget for him, and how dangerous. 

_No,_ he thought again, thinking of Ren in his hospital bed instead of his mother in hers. Hux did not want to start down that path, did not want to seek oblivion in the bottom of a bottle. He would only become his father in miniature, and that was a path that he had sworn never to walk. It had been unpleasant enough being Andrew Hux’s son - and he did not want to inflict that on the people he loved. Not Ren. He had done enough damage to Ren already.

His whole body was trembling, now, his knees weak and his breath uneven and gasping. He shut the laptop sharply and collapsed onto his bed, pulled his knees up to his chest without even realizing it and hugged them. 

More than anything, he wanted someone to tell him how this all made sense. To sit with him, and curl their hand over the back of his neck where the skin was all that protected his spine; to take some of this horrible weight.

He was alone. He had always been alone. He would always be alone.

His higher thought processes made one last try at regulating his limbic systems - _no,_ they said, to the small and terrified boy wearing the body of a man. _Kylo loves you. He would be here if he could. You know he would._

“He would be here,” Hux said to the air, not caring that he spoke aloud, “if I hadn’t bloody let him nearly _die_ -”

And fuck, that was it, that was the absolute outer limits of his control, and he rolled off the bed and stumbled to the door of Ren’s room.

Ren’s room was usually a disaster area, and so if he and Hux were sharing a bed it was invariably Hux’s. Ren’s bed, now as always, had enough space for Ren amongst the rumpled sheets, but the other side was occupied by his bass guitar, his Macbook, and a half-dozen hardback art history books. There were clothes everywhere.

For once in his life, Hux did not care. He fell into the empty side of the bed and breathed in - closed his eyes, and there was Ren, or at least the smell of him: strawberries and caramel and wild apple, musk, an edge of sweat, pencil wood, and that unnameable fragrance that was simply Ren’s skin.

He couldn’t stop himself from grabbing at the pillow, clutching it to himself as though it could fill the empty place in his chest where his heart should have been _(but I left it with you, Kylo, miserable gift that it is)_. He buried his face in it, sobbed into the soft fabric in great heaving breaths that hurt his ribs and throat, and let it muffle the sound, soak up his tears, and hide him even though there was no-one to know, no-one to see him break.

Distantly, he could feel his heartbeat racing, the sweaty tightness of a belt pulled close and cruel around his neck - _no, not this on top of everything else, no_ \- and everything in his mind was sharp and awful and too fast, too vicious to escape.

He couldn’t breathe.

No. He knew this. This was just a panic attack, just an intrusive flashback - he’d pushed himself too far, fracturing along the old fault lines of shame and failure, and the horrible discoveries he’d made had piled on top of the stress and sickening fear of the previous 24 hours, and now his body was simply forcing him to find a way to stop.

He tried to think rationally, though it was like walking over jagged rapids in a flash flood. He could breathe. He could, and he would. One breath without choking; good. That was good, even if he lost the next two. Another. But it was so difficult, and everything hurt _so much_ -

\- would it ever stop hurting? would he ever stop feeling so scared? -

\- it had to stop, he couldn’t go on like this, he _couldn’t._

The liquor would make it stop.

The razor would make it stop. The razor would make it stop forever.

 _“No,”_ he howled into the pillow, a wild shout at the universe, because the razor _couldn’t_ be the answer, and neither could the Scotch, and he had to get through this somehow, had to find a way to deal with it, a way to get past it enough that he could rest and be there for Ren, who needed him.

He lifted his face from the pillow, tried to blink his eyes clear enough to see, though it was nearly impossible. 

What finally caught his eye was the Iittala bowl on Ren’s bedside table, a beautiful piece of modern glass art that Ren, in his infinite art-student perversity, insisted on using as an ashtray.

Of course. That was the answer.

He stretched out a badly shaking hand to the bedside drawer, where Ren kept his modest stash. Hux knew it was there; they had spent a lazy, rainy Saturday afternoon not two weeks ago lounging on Ren’s bed while Ren had smoked a joint and talked with his hands, the smoke making patterns in the air. Hux had teased him then about his bohemian ways, but had not rejected the shotgun that Ren had offered, blowing gently into his mouth, an indirect kiss.

Ren wouldn’t mind. He probably would even suggest it.

Hux found the rolling papers and Ren’s lighter, and set about constructing what he knew was possibly the worst-built joint he had ever made. He did not think about how mercilessly Ren would have mocked him. His hands were nearly impossible to manage, his fingers clumsy, but he got it rolled and lit, and fell back against Ren’s pillow as he inhaled.

Holding the pungent, resinous smoke in his lungs helped to steady him, and so did exhaling it in as slow a stream as he could. By the third toke the awful pain in his ribs had been replaced with the burn of smoke in his lungs, and he tapped the ash into the Iittala bowl and remembered his cigarette holder.

He wondered if he could stand well enough to go and get it. It was an affectation, but a beautiful one - a silver cigarette holder with an amber mouthpiece, picked up in his last year of uni when he had briefly taken up smoking. He’d quit not too long after, when he’d taken the job at Vauxhall, but he’d kept the cigarette holder in his dressing case as a curiosity.

It was very difficult to leave the shelter of Ren’s bed, and opening his dressing case had brought the little folded envelope to light again, but the cigarette holder was where he had left it, and he slipped the joint into it; then he locked the case back up and staggered back to Ren’s room, unable to deny himself what little comfort he had managed to find.

He was still weeping, but the tears had changed, become gentler as the THC took all the sharp edges away from his thoughts. He found, mostly, that what he wanted to think about now was Ren. How they had lain here together, Ren’s deep voice purring _Stella Maris_ into his ear as his heart had thumped steadily against Hux’s back. How Ren had rested one of his huge hands over Hux’s heart as if to protect it. How against all sense, Hux had felt somehow safer.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had let himself cry like this - it might have been a mandatory counselling session after the honey trap job that had gone terribly wrong, or perhaps it had been as far back as his mother’s funeral. He so rarely felt safe enough to do so. 

In the morning he would take his burdens back up, and go on. But here, now, in the strange, fragile bubble where this felt all right, surrounded by Ren’s things and enveloped in the scent of him rising from the sheets, Hux let all of the pain and poison pour out of his acid heart, and thanked Ren silently for helping him find the virtue in tears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren regains consciousness in hospital, to Hux's great relief. And then Ren's mother visits him in hospital, to Hux's great surprise. Mitaka joins the team, to a rather stressed-out Phasma's relief. 
> 
> (Hux also considers treason.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We, the authors, have figured that it might be more sensible to split the chapters up into 10kish segments so as not to have to face the daunting slog of having to edit and revise and proof 20k while also leading busy lives. 
> 
> We hope you, the readers, forgive us.

Six a.m. found Hux, despite how he had hidden from it under the black and red comforter on Kylo Ren’s bed; it found him, and it reminded him of his bladder, and the knots along his spine from sleeping in a ball, and the long, long list of things he would have to accomplish before he was allowed to sleep any more than the five hours he’d just had.

It wasn’t enough, not by a long chalk, but it would have to do. The joint he had smoked the night before had muted the overwhelming horror and fear just to the point where he had finally been able to sleep at all, and as much as he hated crying, he could feel that letting some of his pent-up emotions out had been the right thing to do. They were still there, sloshing dangerously close to the top of the dam that was his self-discipline. But they were lessened just enough that he thought he might have a chance of short-circuiting the feedback loop of stress, anxiety and trauma before it dragged him under again.

He couldn’t afford the distraction. He had to go into work, and when he did, he needed to have a report in hand for Eliot Benning, who would need far more explanation than Hux was remotely prepared to give if he were to turn up without it.

_Start with the small things,_ he told himself firmly. _Don’t be a bloody fool, we’ve had quite enough of that; up you get, have a wash, put some trousers on and stop all of this maundering, it certainly won’t help you._

The routine of his mornings was always the same, even this morning, and the normalcy of the basic tasks of hygiene and grooming was strangely soothing. No matter what else had happened, his toothpaste still tasted of the same mint and aniseed it always did, and the tepid water of the shower (not hot, not with the humidity of the outside air already climbing into stickiness as the sun rose) felt good on the back of his neck, and the whisper-sharp blade of his straight razor still slid over his cheeks, refining him into the best version of himself: the front-parlour, company-manners Bren Hux, who simply didn’t do things like suffer nervous collapses.

He watched the water clear the soap off the blade, admiring it in a detached fashion. His grandfather had chosen well, for it to still gleam so even after the years it had spent tucked away in a box of his grandfather’s things in the storeroom of the old house at Oxford.

He’d unearthed it there after his mother had passed; she hadn’t drafted a will, but as her only child, it fell to him to be executor, and to clean out what little she had still held onto. There hadn’t been much. She’d been thorough about culling her possessions before she had sold the house in Sussex, and of what was left, he hadn’t felt inclined to keep a large part. Most of her things had gone to Oxfam: her dresses, her dishes, her well-thumbed collection of Mills and Boon novels. He didn’t need them to remember her. 

Of course he had kept her crucifix, the little golden reminder of her own mother and of her Confirmation. The crate full of her delicate watercolour paintings had been a surprise, but a happy one; she’d packed them well, interleaved with archival paper and kept snug under a hand-sewn dust cover. 

He had hesitated over her diary, held the familiar little brown leather book in his hands for a long time - and then he had burned it, unread. She deserved the privacy his jealous and possessive father had never allowed her.

But the box with the razor had been free of any painful emotional attachments for him, merely a lovely implement that had been well-used and well-maintained rather than a painful reminder of anyone. He’d decided on the spot that he would teach himself to shave with it. It suited his style, and it was a fine razor, even if slightly old-fashioned. 

Learning to strop and hone the blade had been relatively easy compared to the slightly perilous process of learning just how to apply its edge to his skin without turning himself into a specimen for an anatomy textbook, and for the first week and a half he’d shaved patchily, over-cautiously, which left him looking ridiculous - the missed strips of stubble resembling the mismatched nap in a badly cut velvet garment. But it had been a much-needed distraction then, as it was now, and he dried it carefully and rested it on the edge of the sink, grateful that it retained its edge at a time when he felt so at risk of losing his own. 

By the time he stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his narrow waist, he’d organised a rough outline of the report in his head, paying particular attention to the salient points he needed to make regarding the infusion levels being changed and which would hopefully distract from any questions of just what had been being infused. It was almost a blessing to put himself so firmly in the shoes of the more anonymously angry doctor, just concerned for the welfare of his teammate; it let him push back against the dull buzzing unease, the nails against glass at the periphery of his senses. This had to be done, and it _would_ be done, and he could do it, and that was all there was to it. He was done with falling apart over it - at least for now, he thought, with a dark, sour amusement. Later there would be time to dwell on it if his brain insisted, which it no doubt would. But that would be later.

Now he dressed, without paying much attention to what he was wearing beyond that all the buttons went into the correct buttonholes, and found his shoes and a jacket to throw over his shoulders until the sun came up, and sat down at his desk to go over the numbers and the notes from the night before.

His fingers rattled over the keys, committing to paper every ounce of offended righteousness and pure Cambridge _sneer_ he could command. Every page, _how dare, how dare,_ concealing the real anger beneath an entirely believable façade of professional affront. He was good at it, too, honed by school and years of passive-aggressive society functions; he summoned the spirit of the most priggish of his classmates, used five words where three would have done and a latinate derivative where a perfectly good simple germanic could have taken its place, and curled his lip as he wrote to add that extra flavour of emotional authenticity.

He had almost lost himself in the groove of it when his work phone buzzed and pulled him back to reality. It was getting on for eight now, and that was Phasma’s number on the screen.

_ren’s still unconscious, but drs think he should wake up later today,_ the text message read.

Hux sucked in a deep breath and held it.

That was good. It was very, very good, and he certainly did _not_ need to slam his laptop shut and hare off at top speed to the hospital. Nor did he need to cry, no matter what his stress hormones thought about it. That was done. No, what he needed to do was come up with something pleasant to text back to Phasma.

He wondered, for a long and aching moment, if she had been given access to Ren’s toxicology report. But he couldn’t ask until he’d decided one way or the other if he trusted her; that was a conversation they would have to have face to face, where he could see her tells. If indeed she had any after this long in the business.

_Thanks,_ he thumbed. _I should be able to relieve you after I pass my report to Benning. Shall I bring anything?_

Phasma’s reply arrived several seconds after he had sent his message: _finished the socks. need to figure out what to knit next._

Hux stared wearily at the screen of his work phone for a brief moment. He supposed the request could have been a serious one, but she kept her stash of yarn in her bedroom, and no power on Earth would compel him to go rooting around in her things without her explicit permission, especially not looking for sock yarn.

_I’ll bring coffee,_ he sent back.

And that broke whatever spell he had been under, that had been keeping him so alert on his own. He yawned, hard enough to crack his jaw and wring tears out of his eyes. He had thought about coffee, a critical error, and now he could go no further without it.

He glanced at the time on his phone, and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket, slipping it on properly. As much as he knew he could prepare a perfectly adequate cup of coffee on his own, he also wanted breakfast, something with a little protein to sustain him, and there was still very little in the house by way of easily prepared food. He didn’t have the energy or the time today; the house was still a too-silent mausoleum; he would go in, and let the cafeteria sort out his simple requirements (if there was anything Langley’s kitchens had mastered, it was the speedy and efficient delivery of improbable amounts of caffeine, paired with a ham and cheese omelette), and then finish the report in the office. 

He collected his razor from the edge of the sink and his shoulder holster from the nightstand - not that he expected to need any weaponry today, but the weight of the Browning Hi-Power was familiar and reassuring against his side. Equally reassuring was the gentle bite of his jacket collar against his neck as he put it back on, the pad-stitched layers of silesia, canvas and horsehair between the silk and wool of its lining and construction distributing its weight evenly across his shoulders.

Thus armored against the vicissitudes of the day, he felt able to stand just a little bit straighter. Here he was, a competent and functional professional, more than capable of dealing with his life. Surely looking the part had to make it more true.

With any luck, he thought, Benning would approve him leaving early to relieve Phasma, and her mention of sock-knitting had reminded him that he would probably need something to occupy himself with while Ren slept. He took the copy of _Embassytown_ from his bookshelf, stuffed it in his laptop bag, and locked his door.

\--- 

There were a few living creatures in the world that Phasma felt responsible for.

First of all, there were the crickets, in their little plastic tank on her desk, clustered around the slice of orange she’d put in for moisture. They were so small and helpless they would drown in a dish of water. But she wasn’t attached to them, not really. They were there for the flytrap.

She supposed the plant was less helpless, although there weren’t a lot of flies it would come across on its own, in its spot on her desk. She would feed it one of the crickets later. As much as it had started out as a joke, she’d grown really fond of the small plant, and was rather parentally pleased that it had grown enough to merit transplantation into a glass fishbowl that served as a terrarium. Perhaps it was odd, but she liked it.

And then, she thought, as she stared at the spread-out pages on her desk, least helpless, but very definitely still her problem: Bhreandáin Hux and Kylo Ren.

This was Hux’s report, and what a report it was. Benning had handed her a copy, numbered and collated, requiring a signature and initials on every page due to the level of clearance required to see it at all. He’d looked exhausted, frankly.

“I sent Hux home,” he’d said. “I knew he didn’t want to be here, but - he’s too angry to be here right now, Phasma, I don’t want him in the same building as John Snoke.”

Reading over the report, she could see why. The findings, all on their own, were unsettling. The diagnostics Hux had performed on their PASIV unit had revealed that someone had gone in and boosted the flow rate on Ren’s line, and that Belgrade had not been the first time this had occurred. Belgrade had only been the first time this adjustment had led to a direct medical consequence. 

Hux’s suppressed rage sang off every line of the report, and for a brief moment Phasma wondered in dark amusement if it was the Englishness that had taught him how to express insolent amounts of anger at his bosses in impeccable language that no-one could rightly fault. But then she had been born in England, and her dad was English, albeit of blue-collar origins, and he had never sounded this way. It was probably the poshness, she thought. Eton would have prepared Hux for a lifetime of passive-aggressively complaining to indifferent superiors. 

_One must wonder,_ he had written, _why one bothers vetting and hiring a Cambridge-trained physician and importing him from Vauxhall to maintain and enforce internal workplace safety guidelines if one also permits someone else to alter his preset parameters for medical equipment._

_Even in the most benign situation - that of presuming that the dosage guidelines might be insufficient for a subject’s body mass and attempting to ‘help’ - would still lead to the possibility of accidental overdose, a situation which we are now facing in the case of Kylo Ren. No matter how one reads this situation, the lapse of protocol seems reckless and disrespectful of the aforementioned physician’s medical authority._

She’d unfastened the pages and spread them out so she could see the whole document at once, something she could only really do in the privacy of her office. It was entirely damning.

She couldn’t imagine what Snoke had been thinking - for it had to have been Snoke, by the timestamps, and there was no other alternative she knew of who knew enough about the mechanism of the PASIV and the properties of the chemical blend it pumped into them.

She wondered if Hux even knew what was in it, beyond a basic understanding of the component parts. There should have been a copy of Ren’s toxicology screen results at the end of the report to pinpoint the active component that had produced the symptoms, and to bolster Hux’s conclusions. But there wasn’t.

It wasn’t like him to leave something that crucial out, unless he simply didn’t have it - perhaps the hospital had delayed releasing it to him? He should certainly have been given it.

It was strange, and she didn’t like strangeness, not in their line of work. It usually meant that something was about to go very wrong, or had already.

And then she wanted to laugh at herself. Ren was in the hospital. Their entire team was furloughed until he was well enough to work again, and it was at least a week until either she or Hux would be allowed back in the office. If that didn’t mean that something had already gone very wrong, what more would it take?

She reached into her pocket for her phone. Hux would be at the hospital, waiting at Ren’s bedside. He would probably welcome the distraction - but she hesitated, her thumb hovering over his number. This wasn’t something she wanted to text him about. This was something much better discussed in person. 

She would have to find a time, and soon, before she herself felt moved to go down to the lab and personally give John Snoke a jagged piece of her mind. Never mind that Benning had specifically forbidden her to do any such thing either. And never mind that it wasn’t her role to discipline Snoke - Benning would have that very well under control. He had spent over a decade running and handling assets before he had been promoted into his present position, and he generally knew what he was doing, both in disciplinary matters and in the care and feeding of stressed-out field agents. It would be better if she did as he had instructed her to do, and went home and got some proper sleep.

Phasma gathered the pages off her desk, collated them carefully and put them back in their manila folder. But the idea of leaving the report locked in her desk didn’t feel quite right - she needed to think about this some more, and she’d want it to refer to if she did, to confirm details and help her understand what had gone wrong for her team. She lived on CIA property, and technically she wasn’t forbidden to take it home; if she had to she could keep it in the safe next to her gun. 

There was a knock at the office door, unexpected and echoing in the nearly-empty office. She frowned briefly, stuffed the report in her capacious purse, and rose to get the door. 

Dopheld Mitaka stood on the other side of the threshold, carrying a cardboard box in his arms, his expression solemn and rueful. She realized that the box contained the contents of his desk. A silk top hat, a polished wooden wand and a plush bunny crowned the pile rather incongruously. “Kaydel Ko said she saw you collecting a report at Benning’s, and I thought you’d still be here,” he said by way of explanation. 

“They didn’t shitcan you, did they?” Phasma asked him, then stepped aside to let him in. “No, you’d have been escorted out of the building if you were fired. What happened?” 

Mitaka waited until the door shut behind him, and then put his cardboard box down on Hux’s immaculate desk. He sighed, long and low and weary. “Well, technically I’m about thiiiis close to being fired.” He gestured with his thumb and forefinger, pinching delicately at the air before him. “Gillen put me on administrative leave, and my caseload’s been handed over to Kelly Hanamura. You know her?” 

Phasma shook her head once, minutely and perched herself on the edge of Ren’s desk, careful to avoid the collection of technical pens and pencils that had accumulated over time. He tended not to collect them and put them back in his wire mesh pencil cup, possibly because it was occupied by a tiny finger puppet of Andy Warhol perched proudly over a fat marker placed upright. But she wouldn’t move them. There was space enough. 

Mitaka sat down in Hux’s empty chair, spun it around once before he continued speaking. 

“But then Benning came to look for me while I was clearing off my desk, and he told me that he still hadn’t disciplined me for setting the Hornet on his ass. I told him that there wasn’t much he could do to me that would still be discipline rather than petty revenge, given my current situation, and he just gave me the smuggest, smarmiest smile ever. Have you ever seen him smile? It’s kind of creepy, like he just stapled the corners of his mouth in place.”

“What did he say?” Phasma asked Mitaka, more in an obligatory sense than out of curiosity. She had worked for Benning long enough that she could guess the terms of Mitaka’s punishment.

“He called some people from my office - Gillen and Frankels, some other folks higher up on the food chain, and hosed the deck down some, but now he owns me from ass to teakettle.” 

“Well,” Phasma said, shrugging slightly to suppress her smile at his figure of speech, “your teakettle is going to find that he’s a fairly decent owner, as far as such things go. Unless he’s still pissed off about Bazine.” 

“Yeah, well, that’s not the part I’m worried about.” Mitaka glanced up at her, smiled nervously. “Benning assigned me to your team. So I’m kind of your problem now. He told me that if I loved you guys enough to get in that kind of trouble for you, I could join you.” 

“Oh, Doph,” Phasma sighed in a mixture of joy and relief. “There’s nobody else I’d rather have watching my back at this point.” She slid off Ren’s desk and picked up her purse, turned the lamp off over her desk. “I’m not supposed to be here right now - I’m on leave. How’s about we exit the building and get an early lunch?” 

Mitaka stood up and dusted his hands off on his trousers, and cracked his knuckles in an alarming tattoo of pops and cracks. “Sure. I’m still on administrative leave until Benning gets everything ironed out, so I don’t really have anything to do for the rest of the week. He told me that you and Hux probably need some help minding Kylo Ren while he’s in hospital?” 

Phasma let herself sag slightly at the thought. She had been awake for roughly sixteen hours now and was definitely overdue for more sleep. “We’ve been pulling twelve-hour shifts, the both of us,” she said. “Splitting it three ways is probably the saner way to go.” 

“We’ll sort out specifics while we eat,” he told her. “There’s a Chinese restaurant nearby that I’d recommend highly - they know me because Wendy keeps taking me there. They let me order off their Chinese menu.”

Phasma raised a brow, as he held the office door open so she could step out. She was slightly impressed: Mandarin Chinese was one of the harder languages for L1 English speakers to learn, up there with Finnish and Arabic, but he had already shown himself to be capable of absorbing an enormous amount of punishment.

“You read Chinese? Which dialect?” She was no linguist, but knew enough to know that dialect mattered - several dialects of Chinese were in no way mutually intelligible with Mandarin Chinese and were only considered dialects for political reasons. 

“Mandarin Chinese, what some people call _putonghua,_ and badly.” Mitaka grinned briefly, suddenly his old mischievous self again. “Enough to order fish steamed with ginger and scallions and laugh at people’s tattoos. My spoken Chinese is even worse.” 

“How much worse?” Phasma asked him, curious. 

Mitaka shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance that failed. His face crinkled up as he suppressed a chuckle. “The last time I tried to tell Wendy I was sleepy in Chinese, she burst out laughing because my tones were so bad, what I actually told her meant an elephant had pissed down my leg.” 

\---

Kylo Ren woke up before he opened his eyes. His mind felt logy, fuzzy around the edges. Something was strange, very strange, but he simply did not have the mental throughput to figure out what exactly was wrong. 

He shifted against his pillow, head curiously heavy on his neck, and registered a faint disinfectant smell, a soft beep in the background, the scrape of a chair. There was something irritating his nose, and he turned away from the sensation, then reached up to scratch at it when the movement did not ease it. 

His eyes fluttered open as his fingertips encountered smooth, flexible tubing. The sunlight dazzled him, and he blinked and squinted as a dull ache concentrated itself behind his eyes to stab randomly at his frontal lobes. He should have kept his eyes closed. But it was dimmer if he turned his head to the right, so he did that, hoping the headache would lessen. His mouth was dry, and fear dried it further, left him feeling queasy - this wasn’t his room, this wasn’t any room he knew, where was he?

“Kylo.” There was again the scrape and creak of a chair to his right side, then the best sound he’d ever heard: a soft, familiar murmur as careful fingers smoothed his hair away from his face. “It’s all right, love. I’m here.” 

“Bren,” Ren croaked weakly, through a throat so rough he felt like he’d been sandpapered. If Hux was here, wherever _here_ was, it was worth braving the headache to open his eyes again, just a sliver.

His eyelashes blurred the tiny slice of vision he had, but his head was okay with it, and it _was_ Hux, unmistakable with his bright hair, the faint hint of smoke and violets under the bitter antiseptic air, that clipped accent. The fear gave way somewhat into a warm, drowsy sleepiness, his heartbeat slowing again and the queasiness easing off as he let his head sink back against the pillow. Hux was here, and that was all Ren needed to know. 

There was a soft gurgle of water, and then Hux was holding a paper cup carefully to Ren’s dry, cracked lips. “Slowly,” Hux cautioned as he tipped the cup gently, and Ren sucked up a first, careful sip as the water touched his mouth. It was sweet and cold, and he felt its caress across his paper-dry tongue, the tiny trickle of wetness soothing his throat as he swallowed. He drank a second sip, and a third. That was enough, he decided - he remembered, or thought he remembered, feeling very sick, before… whenever this was. He wouldn’t overdo it. He shook his head minutely, pleased to note that that didn’t make the headache worse, and Hux pulled the cup away. 

He tried again to open his eyes, desperate for more information. This time the light didn’t hurt as much, and he blinked the grit out of his eyelashes, shifted a bit in his bed as he registered the sterile utilitarian surroundings of a hospital room and the beep of medical monitors. And Hux, shoulders slumped, leaning forward as though he wanted to be closer, but also as though he lacked the wherewithal to sit straight.

Even if he hadn’t been able to tell this was a hospital, he would have known from one look at Hux that something, somewhere, had gone drastically wrong. His normally flawlessly-dressed Bren was almost dishevelled, ragged and muted as though he were halfway through some sort of molt that would shed winter pelage in favour of a sleek summer coat. His eyes looked awful, puffy and almost bruised - purple-blue hollows under them fading out into white cheeks and up into bloodshot rims. Either he hadn’t slept, or he’d been crying, or… both? Could it be believed? But either way, his tie was loosened, and _crooked_ , and it filled Ren with the simultaneous need to fix it, and to find out what could possibly have happened to reduce Hux to this state.

He did a slow self-inventory, out to all the various extremities. He seemed to be whole and in no pain at all, beyond the dull edge of the headache that was starting to dissipate. So he hadn’t been injured. 

It took a few moments of depressingly strong concentration, as though he were trying to write an essay on Socialist Realism while also dosed up with strong cough syrup, to turn thoughts into vocalised words. Each thought seemed to drip slowly through his mind like molasses, pooling slowly in a ripply mess before it solidified enough to articulate. But he got there eventually: “Where are we?”

“George Washington University Hospital,” Hux told him. “We’re back in D.C.” He took Ren’s right hand in his, kissed it gently across the knuckles, and Ren registered then the slight pull of tape on his arm and the faint ache of an IV catheter in the crook of his elbow. “I have to step away for a moment and notify a nurse. They should know you’re awake.” Hux let Ren’s hand fall back on top of the blanket, but didn’t let go, didn’t get up from his chair. Maybe he didn’t want to move away any more than Ren wanted him to.

A random thought surfaced from the mire of Ren’s mind, bobbed briefly on the surface before sinking again: _This is where they took Reagan when Hinckley shot him._ But he forced himself to focus through the fuzz in his thoughts. “How long have I been here?” he asked. 

“A little more than twenty-four hours. It’s Wednesday. Excuse me.” Hux gave Ren’s hand a final squeeze and let go, pushed the chair back to stand up, and left Ren to stare up at the unfamiliar ceiling and listen to Hux’s footsteps as he left the room, the muted syllables of his speech outside, as he tried to process what Hux had just told him.

The last thing he remembered clearly was leaving their safehouse in Belgrade, on their way to meet Denisov. Then there were a few fractured moments of cold hard floors, and feeling _awful_ , but not enough of those to weave together into anything coherent. And yet somehow they were halfway around the world, back at home. Had they even finished the job? How had he come here? What had happened to him?

There were too many questions, and he was just so _sleepy_. 

His eyes had started to close again when Hux returned, several minutes later, but he managed to pull himself out of it just a little, enough to give Hux the soft edges of a smile as he sat back down in the chair and reached for his hand. Hux’s grip was the most solidity he had in this half-submerged state, as the bed drifted gently on the phantom upward swell of a non-existent ocean.

“What happened to me?” he asked. Surely Hux would know. Hux always knew everything.

His grasp of the passage of time was as nebulous as everything else, but it seemed like it took Hux an oddly long time to formulate a response. Ren rolled over to look at him, the only thing in the world so much worth looking at.

Hux was staring at their joined hands, his eyes half-veiled by the shadows of his eyelashes, standing out so brightly from this angle. He tightened his fingers over Ren’s hand.

“There was an overdose of some sort with the sedation,” Hux said slowly. “You came back up with us but you passed out again and I couldn’t… I wanted you under proper medical supervision. Better than what Belgrade had to offer.” His laugh sounded slightly forced. “So we came home. And you’re here, and you’re safe now.”

“Oh,” Ren said. That was… a lot to take on board, and surely an oversimplification. “Were you okay? Is Phasma?”

“We were fine.” Hux tried to smile, and Ren was sure it was meant to be reassuring, but the way it slipped sideways into a frown confused it into a grimace, stiff with repression of something strong and unpleasant. Anger. _Rage_ , even.

“I’m sorry,” Ren said quickly, irrationally afraid that he’d said something wrong, something that had caused that pain he could read so clearly even if he didn’t know the reason for it. Or maybe they’d fucked up the job, or something, because of him. He wished he could remember. “Don’t be mad. Please.”

Hux took a sharp breath through his nose, and lifted Ren’s hand to brush another kiss over his knuckles. “It’s not you I’m angry with. You have nothing at all to be sorry for - I should be the one apologizing, if anyone.”

“Why?” Ren squeezed back as best he could - Hux’s grip was becoming bruisingly tight, and although his vision was still terribly hazy with the drowsiness, he thought he could see tears welling bright in Hux’s eyes. This was more than just anger. “Did you do something?”

Hux sighed, long and low, and loosened his grip. “I’m the chemist. It’s my job to make sure this doesn’t happen. And I failed you.” His voice shredded over the last few syllables, and he swallowed and fell silent.

Ren knew what he was looking at, then - would have known it sooner if he hadn’t been so fuzzy-headed. What he could see in Hux’s expression was shame, coupled with poisonous amounts of guilt.

“Hey,” he said, and pulled gently at their hands, bringing them up so he could kiss Hux’s hand in turn. “This job has risks. I knew that when I signed up, right?” He was too tired to choose his words carefully, or really at all. “And I’m alive. Or if I’m dead, you’re here, so this must be heaven. Either way we’re going to be fine.”

Hux made a choked sound, something like a laugh. “Say that again when they get through reading my mission report.”

Ren shut his eyes wearily, and pulled Hux’s hand up to his cheek, rubbing the back of his hand over his cheekbone until Hux got the idea and cupped it gently. “I don’t care if it was your fault or not,” he said. “The way I see it, if they fire you, I’ve always wanted to live in London.”

“Oh, _Kylo_ ,” Hux said, despair and love in equal measures.

Ren smiled, as he let sleep win. Hux was here. Whatever happened, whatever had already happened, Hux was here, and so he would be all right.

\--- 

“What did she call you again?” Phasma asked Mitaka, as the proprietress left to fetch them more tea. Before them at their table sat the demolished remnants of their lunch: their empty rice bowls and two large plates that had formerly contained soft beancurd cooked in a thick, spicy sauce, and sliced eggplants stir-fried with ground beef and garlic. Phasma had let Mitaka order for her - after all, it wasn’t as though she could read the Chinese menu herself - and she had not been disappointed in his choices at all. 

_“Xiâodòu,”_ Mitaka smiled briefly, vaguely embarassed as he played with his empty teacup. _“Dòu_ means ‘bean’ in Chinese, and it’s a rough homophone for ‘Doph’. The _xiâo_ in the beginning means ‘small’ in a literal sense. Used like this it denotes youth, kind of like Junior as opposed to Senior. Plus, you know how cabbages are cute in French, because of the way the word sounds?” 

“ _Choux,_ yes,” Phasma nodded. She could feel herself relaxing after the good meal. Behind her was the soft hum and bubble of an airstone and filter pump in a large fish tank, where several fancy goldfish swam from end to end in an eternal loop.

“Yeah, well,” Mitaka shrugged, “beans sound cute in Chinese. There’s a reduplication sometimes, _dòudòu,_ which emphasizes the cuteness, so there’s kind of an implied meaning there. It’s sometimes used colloquially to mean ‘toddler’.” 

Phasma chuckled despite herself and the weight of the stress and sleep deprivation that she had been dealing with since that evening in Belgrade two days ago. “So it means that you’re a small bean?” she asked, just a little facetiously. 

Mitaka sighed dramatically, still smiling as he did so. “That’s the charitable take on it. If you asked Wendy, and she’s the one who came up with the nickname, it also means that I’m childish but adorable. But then she’s also mentioned that someone has to keep me grounded, so it might as well be her. Opposites attract, I guess.” 

“You don’t seem that childish to me.” Phasma went silent as a waitress came to their table bearing a small, steaming teapot on a tray. She laid it wordlessly between them, and then cleared the empty dishes from the table top and bussed them to the kitchen for washing. 

Mitaka took up the small stainless teapot and refilled their cups, starting politely with Phasma’s. “Yeah,” he said, “but you’ve seen me only with my work face on. I’m a lot more of a goof in private.”

Phasma reached for her teacup after Mitaka had filled it, was about to pick it up when her work phone buzzed fiercely inside her purse. She plucked it out of the side pocket and unlocked it with her code, glanced at the screen. Hux had sent her a message. 

_Ren’s conscious,_ it read. _Dr Thakar says she might want to keep him for observation for the next 24 to 36 hours just to make sure, but he’s doing well._

Phasma sighed softly with relief, and checked the time on the screen while she had the phone in her hand, ignoring the watch on her wrist. 12:42 PM.

“What’s the matter?” Mitaka asked. He had put the teapot down and was waiting for his tea to cool, and he raised an eyebrow slightly as he watched the expression on her face. 

“Good news,” she told him, stuffing the phone back into her purse. “Ren just woke up. They aren’t discharging him from hospital yet, though, so we’re still going to have to hammer out the shift you’re taking.” 

“No problem.” Mitaka pulled out his personal phone from an inner jacket pocket to consult its calendar. A tiny heart-shaped charm hung incongruously from the top left corner of its case. “There’s 24 hours in the day, so maybe a three-way split, 8 hours each? If we set midnight arbitrarily for a shift change, then they’ll be 4PM to midnight, midnight to 8AM, and 8AM to 4PM.”

“Which one would be best for you? Note that I don’t have any significant others to worry about,” Phasma reminded him, “so my schedule is probably more flexible than yours.” She took a sip of her hot tea, and felt its tannic fragrance refresh her mind and her palate as its warmth spread through her stomach.

Mitaka made a few notes on his personal phone, the charm swinging gently from side to side as he did. “I thought I could take care of the chores for the rest of the week,” he said, “since I’m on leave until Benning gets everything ironed out, so how’s about I take 4PM to midnight? That lets you go home for a nap about now and stay on the schedule you’re on, and it lets Hux sleep through the night, since he’s already covering what’ll become the 8AM to 4PM shift.” 

Phasma drained her teacup then, ignoring the scalding heat. She let out a contented sigh as several of her worries dissipated like smoke. “You are a kind and considerate man, Doph,” she told him, “even if you make more dad jokes than my dad.”

“What can I say?” Mitaka shrugged mock-helplessly. “My in-laws in waiting are insisting we get married and give them some grandchildren soon, so I’m trying to get into practice.” 

\---

Tenacity was a virtue, when it came to living the sort of life that Hux did. It was what got reports written on time, and mission objectives completed, and entire loads of shopping carried upstairs all in one go.

Watching Ren smile in his sleep gave Hux the sensation of setting all of his burdens down, and standing up, lighter and freer, and only then becoming conscious of how much weight he’d been carrying and how much more effort everything had been.

His worries weren’t gone. His hands still shook, when he forgot that he was trying not to think about work, and Snoke, and what exactly was going on in the dreamshare department, and the vial in his dressing case. But now at least he could set all the stress aside, and focus on the undiluted joy of the fact that Ren had woken, and that he would soon be able to take him home. Not immediately, of course - he agreed entirely with Dr Thakar’s cautious decision to keep Ren under observation. Overdoses were sometimes more complex than they initially appeared, especially when he still didn’t know if Thakar had seen the tox results. They still hadn’t given them to him. Under the circumstances, it seemed infinitely better to leave Ren where he was safe even if things found a new and exciting way to go drastically wrong.

But soon - soon enough, he would have Ren, all six foot three of him, infuriating and perfect, and they would lie in bed all day and talk about nothing until he felt better, and until the hollow place under Hux’s breastbone stopped aching quite so badly at the thought of being anywhere but at his side.

Ren certainly wasn’t quite himself yet. Each time he woke he was less muzzy, less unfocused, less plagued by nausea that came and went - but he definitely needed the safeguard of an Agency minder to keep him from spilling state secrets while still residually drugged-up and uninhibited enough to speak whatever wild thoughts and requests crossed his mind. Hux didn’t mind very much (at all, at _all_ ) if Ren wanted to spend twenty minutes making Hux tilt his head at various angles in a fruitless attempt to pin down exactly what color his eyes were. Ren’s own eyes were a warm and uncomplicated brown, and Hux could look into them all day if that was what Ren really wanted to do. But he’d already gently ended four conversations about Belgrade with the promise that they’d discuss it at home, later. 

He still wasn’t sure exactly what he’d say. He couldn’t tell Ren everything. Not until he’d found some way to have his suspicions corroborated, and worked out whether he could tell Phasma. He would most likely have to stick to the facts he’d put in his report, which he supposed was not inaccurate, but… it seemed completely unfair that he couldn’t tell Ren, when he was the most directly impacted. But the problem was, the more people knew a secret, the harder it was to keep it. They romped around in Ren’s dreams so often, using his head as a testing ground and a home base - and of the three of them, he was the least skilled at dissembling. It simply wasn’t safe to tell him yet. 

For the moment, he concentrated on distraction. Ren had been fairly easy to entertain whilst stuck in a hospital bed, listening gamely to Hux’s attempts at reading _Embassytown_ aloud despite the difficulties of attempting to pronounce an alien language intended for speakers with two sets of vocal apparatus. 

“This book is weird,” Ren declared from his bed, _apropos_ of nothing, “but it’s a you kind of weird.”

Hux paused and marked his page with a bookmark of braided cord, and laid the book down across his lap as he turned his head to glance softly at Ren. His color was much improved, the terrible grayness gone from his face, but his eyes were still shadowed vaguely. “What,” he asked gently, “would you categorize as a _me_ kind of weird?” 

“Y’know,” Ren mumbled, coloring slightly, “brilliant but depressing literature that requires a Ph.D. to properly understand, psychedelic French SF comics that look amazing but have no real idea where the plot is going, three hours of Thom Yorke free-associating about lemons while his bandmates make random noodly sounds in the background.” 

Hux did not see anything particularly weird about the things Ren had described, but he supposed it was a failure of his imagination. “And that’s not also a Kylo Ren inflected flavor of weirdness?” he teased.

“I am totally different.” Ren laughed lazily, slowly, a sound that brought a smile to Hux’s face. “I’m all depressing Japanese comics about an immortal who can’t die until he kills a thousand other dudes, cartoons about dysfunctional child soldiers in giant robots that are actually their dead mothers, a novel that’s actually four different novels at the same time kludged together with a nightmare of gimmicky typography, and music by chronically depressed people from Manchester.” 

“Mancunians,” Hux supplied, “and that’s what I love-” He was leaning in to whisper, but the sound of heels clacking on the floor outside Ren’s room alerted him to visitors. Those footfalls sounded like no nurse on this floor had, and Hux straightened back up in his chair and opened his novel again, half-expecting a doctor. _A woman,_ he thought, as he picked up his bookmark, _low-ish heels, chunky._ All this he inferred from the sound of her step approaching the room. _Not tall,_ he thought, counting the seconds between strides, _and accompanied by one, two other people in flat shoes?_

The footsteps paused outside of Ren’s room, and then a woman stepped in - not a doctor, after all. She was smallish, as Hux had assumed, a little older than middle age. She wore a sober trouser suit, and her graying hair, pulled up in a neat braided bun, was still mostly dark brown. The first thing Hux thought, when he looked up at her, was that her eyes were very like Ren’s, clear and dark, and that they bore a strong familial resemblance to each other. 

The second thing Hux thought was: _Oh, bugger me, I’ve seen her on C-SPAN. That’s Senator Leia Organa._

“Hello,” Senator Organa said politely, her voice all warmth, “I’m Leia Organa. You must be one of Ben’s coworkers.” Her smile was knowing, just a little too much so, and Hux felt as though he had been stripped naked and then X-rayed in preparation for a very intrusive search of his person.

He stood quickly, trying very hard not to give her the impression of surprise. “Ma’am,” he said, unsure of what else to say. 

“Mom!” Ren cried from his hospital bed, sitting up fast enough that his heart rate monitor started beeping faster in response to his pulse. He was smiling widely, beatifically, his face crinkling up in an expression that was not entirely sober-minded. 

_‘Mom,’_ Hux thought, his polite smile frozen on his face through the horror he felt creeping up his gut to drive icicle spikes up into his liver and diaphragm and raise goosebumps on his arms. _Senator Organa is Kylo Ren’s mother._

_He never did tell me his birth name, did he?_

_You didn’t ask, you great big eejit,_ another less-cautious part of his mind reminded him. _You were too busy debauching him hard enough for him to call you Daddy._

“I’ll let you both talk in private,” Hux managed to say with great effort. _Don’t let it show, don’t let it show,_ he told himself, sure that the shock did show in every one of his microexpressions, in the whites of his eyes. He had never really appreciated that saying about how swans were paddling like hell below until this very moment, trying to sail confidently past a senator who already knew far too much. 

“Thank you very much.” Senator Organa sounded cordial as she moved towards the chair that Hux had vacated, which he tried to take as a sign of the good impression he had made upon her. At least he hoped very much that the impression was a positive one. He stepped out into the hallway and closed the room door, found himself waiting with two of her staffers, a large bearded man and a petite Asian woman. 

Hux glanced down at their shoes, noticed the woman’s sensible flats and let his gaze slide discreetly upward, where he lingered briefly at the fraying seam of her jacket, on the side back just above her waist, on the right. She was armed, he was sure of it, the wear on the seam likely from constant rubbing against the butt of a sidearm holstered behind her hip, inside or outside her waistband. Hux looked up at her, caught her appraising him similarly. They exchanged brief nods, one professional to another. 

It would have been odd for a Minister of Parliament to require a personal bodyguard in most of the normal situations back in England, but this was America. The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords two years ago had likely led Senator Organa to prudently consider her personal safety in a country where gun ownership was legal and where firearms were fairly common.

And then it was back to worrying for Hux, as he ran mentally through what little he knew about Senator Organa - that she was senior senator for the state of Massachusetts, which explained Kylo Ren’s origins in Boston, and that she was fairly liberal for America, which reassured Hux slightly. He hoped last of all that Ren was not currently so uninhibited that he would start telling his mother about very private matters in his personal life as pertained to Hux. 

Their voices carried ever so slightly through the closed door - not enough to be intelligible in any way, but enough to tell Hux that Ren was currently speaking rather loudly, an indicator that it was likely more efficient to abandon hope and assume the position, bracing for impact in anticipation of events to come. 

\--- 

“I was so worried when I got the call from your boss, Ben,” Leia said as she sat down in the chair next to the bed. Ren settled himself back against the pillows and reached out to take his mother’s hand, her fingers dwarfed in his grip. “I suppose I can’t ask you what happened to you,” she continued. 

“I couldn’t tell you even if you asked me,” Ren said, “because I don’t remember anything about it.” He watched his mother’s gaze settle on the hospital bracelet over his right wrist, remembered dully that it bore his workname, not his birth name. 

“Your father isn’t saying anything either. Confidentiality reasons, I suppose,” Leia sighed. “I was worried that something awful had happened to you, but you look mostly whole.” She squeezed his fingers gently, and then let go to smooth his tangled hair out of his eyes, and it was as though he was thirteen again, sick with chickenpox and his father waiting outside with a bowl of The Soup. Ren’s belly growled softly under his hospital gown, barely audible - it was the first time he had felt something there that wasn’t queasiness since he had woken up. 

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Ren closed his eyes wearily. The ceiling was still as boring as it had been earlier when Hux had been reading to him, but the sadness in his mother’s gaze was hard to look at even through the layers of cognitive fog that clung to his brain like cobwebs and condensation. 

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Leia tutted sharply. It was funny, to have this conversation from the other side to how he’d had it with Hux earlier - but still somehow just as important that he knew he hadn’t hurt her, as that Hux knew he hadn’t hurt him. 

She was caressing his face lightly, the way she often had when he had been younger and fitted still in her lap,as though she could trace his genealogy through the skull lying in shallow relief beneath his flesh instead of the coded dot-dash of DNA strands. “It’s just the reality of your job,” she murmured, her voice softer, “and if I had issues with you becoming a field agent, which I don’t, then I should have told you about them before I let you take the job offer, instead of now.” 

Ren let his eyes open slowly then, tried to smile at Leia, but blinked drowsily instead. He wanted so much to remain conscious but the sleepiness was returning with a vengeance.

“That well-dressed young man,” Leia continued as Ren remained silent, “who is he? A coworker, or just an Agency minder?”

“That’s Bren,” Ren said, and he couldn’t help smiling at that. It felt as though his heart grew two or three sizes every time he thought of Hux. “Or is it Will? Am I supposed to be using his workname with you?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Leia said, her eyes suddenly very bright for no reason that Ren could discern at all. She smiled, a little wistfully as she brushed a crumb of grit out of the corner of his eye. “You like him, don’t you?” 

“I love him, Mom,” Ren sighed. He closed his eyes in contentment and took a deep breath. “Bren’s so smart, Mom, and he’s so nice,” he said, the words coming out in a long rush of breath. “He took me suit shopping and taught me what to wear. And he taught me how to fight, and how to shoot, so I could be… good.” 

“He likes you back.” Leia said. It was not a question, and Ren accepted her knowledge of the fact as he had accepted everything she had known about him, mother-wise. It was simply what she did, he thought in this moment of drowsy warmth, unquestioning. 

“He takes care of me, Mom,” Ren murmured, as he forced his eyes open again in an effort to stay awake. It seemed very important that he not sleep through his mother’s visit. After all, she had probably come from Boston. Or had she? “He doesn’t let me eat sugary cereal for breakfast every day. He says it’s going to wreck my pancreas.”

Leia smiled indulgently down at Ren, and leaned down to kiss him lightly on the brow. “He sounds as wonderful as he looks,” she said as she straightened back up and rocked back in the uncomfortable hospital chair. 

“He’s _so_ pretty,” Ren sighed again. His mother liked Hux - of course she did, how could she not when her son loved him so much? 

Relaxed even further by this happy thought, he closed his eyes, felt himself drift closer to somnolence, and then twitched awake as Leia caressed him gently on the brow.

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep again, Ben,” she said, “so I’ll let you rest. I’ll come see you tomorrow, about the same time?” 

“Sure, Mom. Could you say hi to Dad for me?” he asked.

“Of course.” Leia bent her head to kiss him again, this time on the cheek, and then she stood up and tucked the blanket more securely around his shoulders. “Get well soon, my little prince,” she murmured. 

\---

The door to Ren’s hospital room opened, and his mother ( _Senator Leia Organa, don’t forget that_ , Hux told himself) stepped out, a wistful smile lingering still on her face. 

“He’s gone back to sleep,” she whispered to Hux, as though she could still disturb Ren from the hallway. He nodded respectfully in her direction, and had been about to step into the room when she caught him by the elbow, her grip sure and strong. It was the kind of grasp mothers employed to make sure their straying offspring stayed where they were, and Hux’s heart skipped a beat as he registered her touch with a faint, reflexive hint of panic. 

“Excuse me,” he said, but any further protest died in his chest as she looked up into his face, studied him with those grave dark eyes. Ren looked so much like his mother, Hux thought, glancing at her as she looked into his face. The resemblance was uncanny, especially in the eyes and cheekbones. 

“Thank you for taking care of my son,” Leia said after several long moments, and then she wrapped her arms around his chest and hugged him tightly enough that he could almost feel his ribs creak. 

Ren’s embraces were a distinctly different kind of thing, those long arms enveloping him and pulling him close protectively, almost possessively. But Leia’s hug was comforting and welcoming - motherly, really. No-one had hugged him that way since his mother’s passing, and quite suddenly he realized he _needed_ it. 

What could it hurt. If he knew Ren at all, and he did, and if he could read her at all, and he could, then she probably knew exactly where he stood in relation to her son. Which made it slightly more terrifying, but also so much better that her response to him was to hug him, rather than the slap across the face he might have deserved.

And so Hux closed his eyes and gave in to her, let her hold him for a few seconds more.

At first he thought it was just a sense-memory, but as they stood there it became too strong to deny it was real: the warm sweetness of Leia’s perfume, the telltale bergamot and vanilla of Guerlain Shalimar, roses and jasmine and iris swelling to crowd his senses. It was the scent of _mother_ , of Katherine dressed for Mass with her hair pinned in the neat chignon she favoured, dabbing her wrists against the spot behind her ears after anointing them from the bottle, one of her few luxuries. Of her holding him as Leia was doing now. Of safety, and comfort, and many other things he had thought lost to him.

Senator Organa was not his mother. Nor would she take her place. But in this moment… he was glad, so glad of her, so glad that the person who loved his Kylo the very most besides himself would try to thank him.

He wasn’t sure if he could trust his voice, by the way the tears pricked sharply in his nose, a taste of salt sudden in his mouth, but he kept his face very still and fought the urge to cry as she let him go and he straightened up. “You’re welcome,” he managed. 

It was enough: she squeezed his bicep and smiled, the warm and knowing smile he’d seen on Ren more than once. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

An unreasonable envy flared in his gut as Leia left with her entourage in tow, the same deep and profound unhappiness that had lapped sickly within him once he had grown old enough to know that something was terribly wrong with his own parents. He thought he had conquered this longing, drowned it in the dreary necessities of day-to-day survival, but there it was, aching queasily within him as he sat back down at Ren’s bedside - awakened by the joy on Ren’s face when he’d first seen his mother, and sharpened to a nearly unbearable point by Leia herself.

_They fuck you up, your mum and dad,_ Hux thought, reciting the Philip Larkin poem mentally; _they may not mean to, but they do._

It was not at all Kylo Ren’s fault that his mother was such a kind, caring person that her warmth managed to thaw Hux enough to remind him of the pains he’d frozen deep within the core of his bitter heart. Nor was it their fault that he had no concept of what life in a normal family would have been like, or how such a relationship might apply to him. He only knew that he’d wished for it for far too long, however maladapted he was to it now - he wanted, plainly and simply, to be loved.

Perhaps, he thought, as he watched Ren sleep, his book lying unopened on his lap, he might have a way to become worthy of it. Their trust he had already, whether he deserved it or not. If he could only prove they had picked the right person to trust with Ren’s life...

His thoughts returned again to Snoke, to the sabotage that he had no explanation for. 

Hux liked to tell himself he wasn’t particularly bloodthirsty, that he took little satisfaction from the nastier aspects of his job and that it was all like making sausage - an unpleasant process that was nevertheless quite necessary in the grand scheme of things. But his mind kept underlining all the particularly unpleasant things he theoretically knew how to do to the human body, given his anatomical and physiological knowledge and a very basic understanding of how car batteries worked. 

For example, there was the trigeminal nerve and the way it ran through the bones of the skull to innervate the face, how trigeminal neuralgia was known as the “suicide disease” for the intensity and duration of facial pain suffered during attacks, and how a length of wire wrapped around a nail would probably make a wonderful improvised probe if hammered judiciously through the maxilla. 

But before he could even consider acting on these oh-so-satisfying impulses, he needed a clearer idea of Snoke’s true motives. Aside from the vial locked away in his dressing case, he wasn’t sure if he could even prove the sabotage if he blew the whistle and brought it to his bosses’ collective attentions. He needed to know more, and there were so few safe avenues of research.

He thought of Benning’s warning issued earlier that morning, that he should stay at least a mile from Snoke at all times until the investigation was over, and he shut his eyes and groaned softly as he buried his face in his hands, raging wordlessly at his own helplessness. 

He did not like the thought of running back home crying to Mummy, less than six months into his deployment. But without the resources of Vauxhall, he had nothing, and he couldn’t keep Ren safe with nothing. He would have to run the flag up and hope like hell that someone still owed him a favour big enough to cover what was almost certainly an act of treason.

It didn’t matter what they called it, or what they called him. What mattered was the man in front of him, his only chance at true happiness. And he would do what needed doing.

\---

Ren slept for another two hours, and he woke up feeling well enough to try to eat something solid, which cheered Hux up somewhat and pleased Ren’s nurse as well. Ren’s diet had previously been limited to clear fluids and ginger ale due to a lingering nausea, and he was still getting most of his hydration intravenously, but every step forward was a good one, even if it involved hospital food.

“I think she likes you,” Ren said shyly, his smile almost conspiratorial after the nurse had left the room to summon an orderly. 

“Who,” Hux asked him, feeling vaguely apprehensive again, “the nurse?” Ren was currently in the process of sitting up slowly and carefully, while Hux rearranged the pillows behind his back. 

Ren snorted and lifted his hands as Hux folded the edge of the blanket neatly and tucked it over his lap. “No. My mom.” Ren smiled weakly, glanced down at his hands for a brief moment: “She told me you sound as wonderful as you look, and you know you’re really pretty.” 

Hux fought an inappropriate burst of laughter, and sat back down with his novel, trying to keep his body language calm and reassuring. He didn’t think his anxiety was that visible, but Ren was becoming more lucid, and the hesitation in his manner suggested that he had sensed something in Hux’s demeanor. “I didn’t think I was that vain about my looks,” Hux said lightly. “Clearly I’m wrong. What did you tell her?” 

The orderly chose that moment to wheel Ren’s late lunch in on a cart. The covered tray smelled unexpectedly good for hospital food, and the lid came off to reveal two slices of meatloaf with onion gravy, a fluffy mound of mashed potatoes, still steaming, and a small dish of steamed, buttered corn. It certainly looked edible, which was something of a pleasant surprise. Hux had spent enough of his life subsisting off institutional food that he wanted as little to do with it as possible now that he had the choice, but they’d obviously raised the standards somewhat since his days of school lunches.

Ren waited patiently as she wheeled the table over his lap and set the plate down, arranged the cutlery, and lastly, poured him a fresh glass of ginger ale from a can that she had brought with her. He reached out to explore his place setting only after she had left, his touch oddly hesitant as though he had trouble remembering how to use the utensils. 

“Are you all right?” Hux asked gently, in the silence that followed. 

Ren looked up from his hands to gaze at Hux, his dark eyes entirely guileless. “I told my mother that I love you,” he said. He looked down for a few seconds more, and then glanced back up at Hux as though seeking his approval, an expression that twisted painfully in Hux’s gut. “… That was all right, wasn’t it?” 

Hux had not seen that look on Ren’s face since that morning in Luxembourg City, after they had first fucked and talked out their misunderstandings. Ren only looked like that if he was afraid he had done something wrong. 

“Yes,” Hux murmured, “yes, of course.” 

He knew he would have to work through the implications of it later, but now he reached out to stroke Ren’s hair, and then when Ren leaned heavily into the touch, gave in and kissed him hard because _he_ needed it too. Ren’s mouth was hot and desperate against his, his slick tongue eager, the stubble on his unshaven face scratching softly at Hux’s lips and cheeks and chin. _Oh, I have missed this,_ Hux thought as he ran his fingers through Ren’s pillow-messy hair. 

Ren nibbled softly at Hux’s lower lip as they pulled slowly away from each other, and then he laughed briefly as Hux paused to brush his unruly hair off his brow. Ren’s hair was tangled, dark glossy curls snarled around each other from all the time he had spent with his head on a pillow, and Hux made a mental note to bring a hairbrush with him the next day. 

“We’d better stop.” Ren’s smile grew wider, just a little wilder, the effect somewhat more goofy and silly than intended, no doubt. “Otherwise I won’t be able to stop touching you, and I don’t want to try having sex around a Foley catheter.” 

Hux winced faintly as every slide he had ever seen in a urology lecture flashed briefly before his mind’s eye, a merry collection of everything that could and had gone wrong with the male genitourinary system. Besides, he couldn’t imagine sex around a catheter being comfortable at all - the movement would only exacerbate the urethral irritation already common to Foley insertions. Not to mention the potential for unpleasant bladder infections. “That is horrible,” he said. “ _You’re_ horrible.”

“Yeah,” Ren agreed, “but that’s why you love me.” 

He cut a slice of meatloaf apart with the side of his fork, speared a fragment on the tines and ate it. In that moment Ren truly seemed to be himself for the first time in 36 hours, and Hux was giddy, almost wobbly-legged with relief. 

The intensity of his feelings surprised him, left him feeling vaguely disoriented, and he was suddenly very glad that he was sitting down with a book in his hands: he sagged against the chair back like a leaking sandbag. Exhaustion rushed in to fill the voids in his being where tension and anxiety had been, but it was a sweet tiredness, the kind that promised deep and restful sleep when night fell. 

“You’re right,” he agreed mildly, after he had found his tongue again, “it’s one of the many reasons why I love you.” 

“I know,” Ren said very softly as he put his fork down, his expression suddenly gentle and knowing as he picked up his glass of ginger ale. “I love you too.”


End file.
